Behind the UN Gun Treaty

There’s a lot of commotion right now about the forthcoming UN treaty proposing to regulate the international arms trade that critics think, with justification, would be the handgun equivalent of the Kyoto Protocol for the United States.  Despite well-founded fears that the treaty might “grow” or “evolve” (since international law is even more “alive” than our Constitution), the Obama Administration indicates it will sign the treaty.  Then it will require the two-thirds ratification of the Senate.  Good luck with that.  The only question in my mind is whether this treaty can gain even single digits in a Senate ratification vote beyond Sanders, Boxer, Feinstein, and one or two others.

But this new treaty is a case study in the tenacity and relentlessness of the UN crowd, and why that whole stinking corrupt cabal should be put out of business.  This isn’t some new bolt out of the blue from the UN.  It is something the UN-crats have been steadily working toward since at least 2006.

About five or six years back, when I was teaching a course in comparative constitutionalism as a visiting lecturer at Georgetown for the good folks at TFAS, I stumbled across the most extraordinary report of the UN Human Rights Council on this very issue.  Reading it reminded me why Irving Kristol could say that “human rights” had become a Stalinist concept in our time.

Get a load of the opening paragraph:

No international human right of self-defence is expressly set forth in the primary sources of international law: treaties, customary law, or general principles. While the right to life is recognized in virtually every major international human rights treaty, the principle of self-defence is expressly recognized in only one, the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights), article 2.48.  (Emphasis added.)

Now hold it right there, pardner, as John Wayne might say.  There’s no “general principle” of a right to self-defense???  Say what!?  So all that stuff from John Locke and other theorists of social contract theory about self-preservation being the first principle of all human rights that stands at the core of classical liberalism—that is all just swept away, is it?  (Needless to say, once they come for your guns, they’ll come next after the second principle of liberalism rightly understood: your property rights.)

It gets better: “It is the State that must be responsible—and accountable—for ensuring public safety, rather than civilians themselves.”

Oh goody—the state . . .  oops, excuse me, the State (can’t leave off the capitalization) is going to safeguard my liberty.  Kristol was right.  The international human rights cabal are a bunch of Stalinists.

Here’s some more language from that UN Human Rights Council that gives away the game:

Principles on the prevention of human rights violations committed with small arms

B. Due diligence to prevent human rights abuses by private actors

10. In order to ensure the protection of human rights by preventing small arms violence by private actors, Governments shall enact licensing requirements to prevent possession of arms by persons who are at risk of misusing them. Possession of small arms shall be authorized for specific purposes only_ small arms shall be used strictly for the purpose for which they are authorized. Before issuing a licence Governments shall require training in proper use of small arms, and shall take into consideration, at a minimum, the following factors: age, mental fitness, requested purpose, prior criminal record or record of misuse, and prior acts of domestic violence. Governments shall require periodic renewal of licences.

13. With the cooperation of the international community, Governments shall develop and implement effective disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programmes, including the effective collection, control, storage and destruction of small arms.

What was that?  I didn’t hear you.  I’m reloading.  The UN is a menace to human liberty–full stop.

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