Posts Tagged ‘france’
French Gun Rights Group Joins Growing International Coalition Against Gun Control
Tuesday, December 24th, 2013The International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (IAPCAR) announced today that French gun rights group National Union of Owners Arms Hunting and Shooting (UNPACT) have joined the international coalition of 29 associations in 21 countries dedicated to defending civilian firearms rights.
UNPACT’s membership in the civilian arms rights coalition expands the European membership to eleven groups from eleven different EU and non-EU countries.
“We’re on the side of everyday people in all countries that wish to exercise their right to use firearms for legitimate purposes, including self-defense,” IAPCAR’s Executive Director Philip Watson said. “We’re very pleased to have UNPACT as our newest ally in the fight against extremist groups and individuals attempting to diminish firearms and self-defense rights.”
Gilles Proffit, UNPACT’s Secretary General recently issued a statement critical of an EU ‘White Paper’ proposing new regulatory schemes aimed at curtailing the legitimate ownership of commonly used firearms.
“European citizens cannot and shall not any further trust people, be they designated or elected, who do not trust them,” Proffit said. “They have long memories and will remind voters in all EU countries of this incredible matter in due course every time a national or European ballot comes up.”
IAPCAR and its affiliates issued a call to action last May on the newly proposed EU firearms regulations. The result of public input across Europe was over 92 percent opposed to the new restrictions.
IAPCAR Director Julianne Versnel, who is also the Second Amendment Foundation’s Director of Operations, submitted testimony to the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) meeting in March objecting to the exclusion of civilian arms rights from the ATT. “Nothing that is in an Arms Trade Treaty should affect a woman’s right to defend herself,” Versnel told the delegates.
The IAPCAR civilian arms rights coalition is focused on opposition to the ATT, which has passed the U.N. General Assembly and was made available for countries to sign on June 3. The ATT does not acknowledge or protect civilian arms rights or recognize the right to self-defense in its enforceable language.
The International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (www.iapcar.org) is the only worldwide political action group focusing on the human right to keep and bear arms. Founded in 2010, IAPCAR has grown to 29 major gun-rights organizations in 21 countries and conducts campaigns designed to inform the public and promote the right of self-defense and gun-ownership.
UNPACT
Monday, December 23rd, 2013Continuous drip-drip of distorted gun-related news reporting
Thursday, September 6th, 2012Derek Bernard
6th September 2012
During the afternoon of Wednesday, 5th September, a British family were attacked in their car while on holiday in France, near Chevaline. The 3 adults were shot to death, together with a cyclist, while 2 little girls in the car survived the attack.
Many of the news reports attempt to link the event to the strictness, or lack of it, of gun control in France.
For instance, Henry Samuel, Daily Telegraph, 5th September 2012, included the following:
“France has one of the highest levels of civilian gun ownership in Europe, with far more relaxed gun laws than the UK.
Handguns, semi-automatic weapons and pump-action shotguns are legal if held by active gun club members who must have a licence for them and undergo a medical check.”
As with virtually everything uttered by governments, police and the media on the subject of gun control, gun ownership and criminal violence, the purported linkage has no connection to reality. But this constant, almost subliminal, flow of distortion maintains and strengthens the fearful fantasy that guns, in and of themselves, are dangerous, nasty things that will turn ordinary, non-violent people into criminals and ordinary criminals into murderers.
This fantasy is what drives the European love of complex, expensive, slow and inconvenient gun control procedures, such as gun registration.
In 2007 the Harvard Journal on Law & Public Policy published an article by 2 of the world’s leading researchers, Professor Gary Mauser and lawyer Don Kates. It contained this interesting paragraph:
“One statistic stands out: There are 9 European nations which have less than 5,000 guns per 100,000 population and 7 that have more than 15,000 guns. The average murder rate of the 9 low-gun ownership nations is 3 times higher than the murder rate of the 7 high gun ownership nations. That is apparently because nations w/ high murder rates adopt stringent gun laws, but these don’t work, so high murder rates come to coincide w/ low gun ownership.”
I don’t expect it to be published, but I have sent the following letter to the Editor of the Daily Telegraph:
Dear Sir,
It was very disappointing to read your correspondent, Henry Samuel (5th/6th September), attempting to link the laxity or otherwise of French gun control laws with the murder of a family of British tourists.
French gun laws are not “relaxed”. Like the UK’s they are complex, expensive and highly anti-social in their effects. In addition to their negative effects on sport, pest control, hunting, manufacture and distribution, as well as police efficiency, they, just as in the UK, disarm honest victims.
Does Mr Samuel think that these killers, who clearly wanted to kill every witness to whatever they were up to, went to the “relaxed” French police and asked if they could have a gun or two as they had some murders to commit?
Yours faithfully,
Derek Bernard
Jersey