UN ATT: Anti-gunners not finished with push for global gun control
Original Story Via: Dave Workman, Seattle Gun Rights Examiner
Despite Friday’s breakdown on the global Arms Trade Treaty, international gun control proponents are determined to push their agenda, according to a report carried in the Saturday issue of the Seattle P-I.com.
Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Bellevue-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, watched it all unfold at the United Nations, tipping this column early in the day that the United States would not be signing on, as American anti-gunners had hoped. He told Examiner via e-mail and telephone that the ATT’s momentum hit a massive speed bump because the final draft of the treaty was not produced until late in the day.
Anti-gunners are blaming the National Rifle Association for riling up its members, but that’s hardly the entire story. It’s just that the NRA is an easy target. The NRA did a remarkably effective job alerting its members, and NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre left no doubt when he spoke at the U.N. that his organization would fight this treaty with every available resource.
Amnesty International’s Suzanne Trimel, quoted by the Huffington Post, accused the NRA of “spreading lies” about the treaty.
“Basically,” Trimel reportedly stated, “what they’re saying is that the arms trade treaty will have some impact on domestic, Second Amendment gun rights. And that is just false, completely false.”
Gottlieb’s CCRKBA also mounted a massive grassroots effort to thwart the treaty, and gun owners responded by calling Capitol Hill. This resulted in a groundswell of gun owner fury over a document that was far too much in flux. One wonders what Trimel might say about that organization.
And in the background, domestic firearms and ammunition manufacturers were none-too-thrilled with the proposed treaty, either because it could have had a severe impact on their international business. Likewise, European gun makers were not happy because they sell a lot of firearms here in the United States and elsewhere.
This column’s revelation that the treaty would create a new gun control “secretariat” — translation: a new international bureaucracy — raised even more alarms. That detail was buried several pages back in the treaty draft, and as the saying goes, the Devil is in the details.
The meetings actually went on for about three weeks with little or no movement until the past few days. Gottlieb, who was at the U.N. with his wife, Julianne Versnel, both told Examiner that many people were frustrated at the process. Because the final treaty draft was not delivered until late Thursday afternoon, people simply did not have the opportunity to study it. Versnel noted that other countries — China and Russia most notably — threw up roadblocks as well.
Global gun control proponents are determined to bring this treaty proposal back to the table in September. They are an unhappy lot, so much so that Suzanne Nossel, executive director of Amnesty International USA, felt compelled to say this:
“This was stunning cowardice by the Obama administration, which at the last minute did an about-face and scuttled progress toward a global arms treaty, just as it reached the finish line. It’s a staggering abdication of leadership by the world’s largest exporter of conventional weapons to pull the plug on the talks just as they were nearing an historic breakthrough.”—Suzanne Nossel, quoted by USAToday.
The irony of this statement is perhaps most stunning to American gun owners, who see the Obama administration as the archenemy of gun rights. It was, after all, President Obama who appointed two liberal anti-gunners to the U.S. Supreme Court. It was Mr. Obama who provided last-minute cover to embattled Attorney General Eric Holder in his effort to withhold documents from the Fast and Furious investigation. It was the president who said in 2009 that he supported the ATT and indicated he would sign it.
Now the president is taking a verbal beating from those with whom he might be most closely allied, both politically and philosophically.
Victoria Nuland, spokeswoman for Hillary Clinton’s State Department is quoted by the Associated Press story that appears in the Seattle P-I.com. She reportedly said the U.S. — meaning the Obama administration — wants another round of negotiations next year, as in “after the November election.”
Gun owners are coming to full realization just how important the election is, not only on domestic issues but also on an international scale. Because this treaty still has a genuine possibility of resurrection, it remains a threat and in the collective mind of the firearms community the most effective way to stop it is to replace the administration that wants to sign it.