At a resort in Mexico, representatives of the U.S. government met with delegations from other countries to gauge just how far America is willing to go in letting the United Nations repeal the right of Americans to keep and bear arms.
The First Conference of State Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) was held from August 24 to 27 in Cancun, Mexico. Attendees promulgated rules for future meetings, set budgets for enforcement of the terms of the treaty, and, perhaps most importantly, established procedural rules that will determine how much power agencies of the international body will have over future domestic enforcement mechanisms.
Or, put simply, the United States has acceded to allowing the globalists at the United Nations to set the metes and bounds of the Second Amendment, regardless of the will of the American people.
In a statement issued at the conclusion of the conference, representatives of the European Union praised Mexico for taking leadership in the effort to eradicate “illicit arms” from the globe and promised that the EU would “actively contribute” in the enforcement of the terms of the treaty worldwide.
It is ironic that Mexico would assert itself into the arms control controversy given that the country is notoriously dangerous and is known as the home of some of the region’s bloodiest violence, most of which is perpetrated by gangs who live in defiance of existing gun laws and would undoubtedly feel no compulsion to comply with any additional attempts to squelch the shooting.
Mexican globocrats insist that there is an urgent need to ramp up enforcement of the disarmament treaty as the guns being bought, sold, traded, and manufactured by their northern neighbor — the United States — could easily work their way into Mexico and the only way to prevent that potentiality is to eliminate civilian access to weapons in America.
Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Countryman (shown above) represented the United States at the conference. He made it very clear in his official statement that he was on board with accelerating the move to give teeth to this globalist gun grab.
“We are here to take foundational decisions to operationalize this Treaty, to turn it from mere words on the page into a reality that makes a difference around the world. We are here to breathe life into this Treaty by standing up its international operation,” Countryman declared.
Calling the agreement “a tool that we can use, energetically and effectively,” Countryman committed the United States to “continue its commitment to the Arms Trade Treaty.”
As of today, the United States Senate has not ratified the treaty, but the Obama administration seems set on changing that before the president leaves office. There is only little more than a year left, then, to completely disengage the United States from this multinational morass and unconstitutional mass confiscation of firearms. Perhaps knowing a few of the ATT’s key provisions will convince more Americans to join the fight to protect the Second Amendment.
First, the Arms Trade Treaty grants a monopoly over all weaponry in the hands of the very entity (government) responsible for over 300 million murders in the 20th century.
Furthermore, the treaty leaves private citizens powerless to oppose future slaughters.
An irrefutable fact of armed violence unaddressed by the UN in its gun grab is that all the murders committed by all the serial killers in history don’t amount to a fraction of the brutal killings committed by “authorized state parties” using the very weapons over which they will exercise absolute control under the terms of the Arms Trade Treaty.
Article 2 of the treaty defines the scope of the treaty’s prohibitions. The right to own, buy, sell, trade, or transfer all means of armed resistance, including handguns, is denied to civilians by this section of the Arms Trade Treaty.
Article 3 places the “ammunition/munitions fired, launched or delivered by the conventional arms covered under Article 2” within the scope of the treaty’s prohibitions, as well.
Article 4 rounds out the regulations, also placing all “parts and components” of weapons within the scheme.
Perhaps the most immediate threat to the rights of gun owners in the Arms Trade Treaty is found in Article 5. Under the title of “General Implementation,” Article 5 mandates that all countries participating in the treaty “shall establish and maintain a national control system, including a national control list.”
This list should “apply the provisions of this Treaty to the broadest range of conventional arms.”
Article 12 adds to the record-keeping requirement, mandating that the list include “the quantity, value, model/type, authorized international transfers of conventional arms,” as well as the identity of the “end users” of these items.
In very clear terms, ratification of the Arms Trade Treaty by the United States would require that the U.S. government force gun owners to add their names to the national registry. Citizens would be required to report the amount and type of all firearms and ammunition they possess.
Section 4 of Article 12 of the treaty requires that the list be kept for at least 10 years.
The agreement also demands that national governments take “appropriate measures” to enforce the terms of the treaty, including civilian disarmament. If these countries can’t get this done on their own, however, Article 16 provides for UN assistance, specifically including help with the enforcement of “stockpile management, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programmes.”
In fact, a “voluntary trust fund” will be established to assist those countries that need help from UN peacekeepers or other regional forces to disarm their citizens.
Reading these details along with Assistant Secretary of State Countryman’s enthusiastic, full-throated call for enforcement of them should be enough to encourage all Americans to unite in defeat of the proposed disarmament.
There’s as much to fear from American threats to liberty as from those coming from the United Nations, however.
Despite the desperate state of the situation, there remain many self-described “gun rights groups” that believe that the government has the right to give and take away the right to own firearms depending on whether the person has complied with “reasonable” federal guidelines. This is treachery!
Although Americans have allowed this right to be redefined by Congress, the courts, and the president, the plain language of the Second Amendment explicitly forbids any infringement on this right that protects all others.
In fact, the reason for inclusion of the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights had little to do with the British and more to do with future attempts by an out-of-control, all-powerful central authority disarming the American people as a step toward tyranny.
Take, for example, theses statements by our forefathers regarding the purpose of the passage of this amendment:
In commenting on the Constitution in 1833, Joseph Story wrote:
The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.
In his own commentary on the works of the influential jurist Blackstone, Founding-era legal scholar St. George Tucker wrote:
This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty…. The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.
Writing in The Federalist, Alexander Hamilton explained:
If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state.
Photo of Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Countryman: AP Images
