Friday, July 8, 2011

America Disarmed



Larry Bell 
The Bell Tells for You

U.N. Agreement Should Have All Gun Owners Up In Arms 
  
It may not come as surprising news to many of you that the United Nations doesn’t 
approve of our Second Amendment. Not one bit. And they very much hope to do 
something about it with help from some powerful American friends. Under the guise of a 
proposed global “Small Arms Treaty” premised to fight “terrorism”, “insurgency” and 
“international crime syndicates” you can be quite certain that an even more insidious 
threat is being targeted – our Constitutional right for law-abiding citizens to own and bear 
arms. 
What, exactly, does the intended agreement entail? 
While the terms have yet to be made public, if passed by the U.N. and ratified by our 
Senate, it will almost certainly force the U.S. to: 
1. Enact tougher licensing requirements, creating additional bureaucratic red tape for 
legal firearms ownership. 
2. Confiscate and destroy all “unauthorized” civilian firearms (exempting those 
owned by our government of course). 
3. Ban the trade, sale and private ownership of all semi-automatic weapons (any that 
have magazines even though they still operate in the same one trigger pull – one 
single “bang” manner as revolvers, a simple fact the ant-gun media never seem to 
grasp). 4. Create an international gun registry, clearly setting the stage for full-scale gun 
confiscation. 
5. In short, overriding our national sovereignty, and in the process, providing license 
for the federal government to assert preemptive powers over state regulatory 
powers guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment in addition to our Second 
Amendment rights. 
Have no doubt that this plan is very real, with strong Obama administration support. In 
January 2010 the U.S. joined 152 other countries in endorsing a U.N. Arms Treaty 
Resolution that will establish a 2012 conference to draft a blueprint for enactment. 
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pledged to push for Senate ratification. 
Former U.N. ambassador John Bolton has cautioned gun owners to take this initiative 
seriously, stating that the U.N. “is trying to act as though this is really just a treaty about 
international arms trade between nation states, but there is no doubt that the real agenda 
here is domestic firearms control.” 
Although professing to support the Second Amendment during her presidential election 
bid, Hillary Clinton is not generally known as a gun rights enthusiast. She has been a 
long-time activist for federal firearms licensing and registration, and a vigorous opponent 
of state Right-to-Carry laws. As a New York senator she ranked among the National 
Rifle Association’s worst “F”-rated gun banners who voted to support the sort of 
gunpoint disarmament that marked New Orleans’ rogue police actions against lawabiding gun owners in the anarchistic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. 
President Obama’s record on citizen gun rights doesn’t reflect much advocacy either. 
Consider for example his appointment of anti-gun rights former Seattle Mayor Greg 
Nickels as an alternate U.S. representative to the U.N., and his choice of Andrew Traver 
who has worked to terminate civilian ownership of so-called “assault rifles” (another 
prejudicially meaningless gun term) to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms 
and Explosives. 
Then, in a move unprecedented in American history, the Obama administration quietly 
banned the re-importation and sale of 850,000 collectable antique U.S.-manufactured M1 
Garand and Carbine rifles that were left in South Korea following the Korean War. 
Developed in the 1930s, the venerable M1 Garand carried the U.S. through World War II, 
seeing action in every major battle. 
As an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama was an aggressive advocate for expanding gun 
control laws, and even voted against legislation giving gun owners an affirmative defense 
when they use firearms to defend themselves and their families against home invaders 
and burglars. He also served on a 10-member board of directors of the radically activist 
anti-gun Joyce Foundation in Chicago during a period between 1998-2001when it 
contributed $18,326,183 in grants to anti-Second Amendment organizations. If someone breaks into your home when you are there, which would you prefer to have 
close at hand: 1) a telephone to call 911, or 2) a loaded gun of respectable caliber? That’s 
a pretty easy question for me to answer. I am a long-time NRA member, concealed 
firearms license holder and a regular weekly recreational pistol shooter. And while I 
don’t ordinarily care to target anything that has a mother, will reluctantly make an 
exception should an urgent provocation arise. I also happen to enjoy the company of 
friends who hunt, as well as those, like myself, who share an abiding interest in American 
history and the firearms that influenced it. 
There are many like me, and fewer of them would be alive today were it not for exercise 
of their gun rights. In fact law-abiding citizens in America used guns in self-defense 2.5 
million times during 1993 (about 6,850 times per day), and actually shot and killed 2 1/2 
times as many criminals as police did (1,527 to 606). Those civilian self-defense 
shootings resulted in less than 1/5th as many incidents as police where an innocent person 
was mistakenly identified as a criminal (2% versus 11%). 
Just how effectively have gun bans worked to make citizens safer in other countries? 
Take the number of home break-ins while residents are present as an indication. In 
Canada and Britain, both with tough gun-control laws, nearly half of all burglaries occur 
when residents are present. But in the U.S. where many households are armed, only about 
13% happen when someone is home. 
Recognizing clear statistical benefit evidence, 41 states now allow competent, lawabiding adults to carry permitted or permit-exempt concealed handguns. As a result, 
crime rates in those states have typically fallen at least 10% in the year following 
enactment. 
So the majority in our Senate is smart enough to realize that the U.N.’s gun-grab agenda 
is unconstitutional, politically suicidal for those who support it, and down-right idiotic—
right? Let’s hope so, but not entirely count on it. While a few loyal Obama Democrats are 
truly “pro-gun”, many are loathe to vote against treaties that carry the president’s 
international prestige, causing him embarrassment. 
Also, don’t forget that Senate confirmation of anti-gun Obama nominee Supreme Court 
Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Many within the few who voted against her did so only because 
of massive grassroots pressure from constituents who take their Constitutional protections 
very seriously. 
Now, more than ever, it’s imperative to stick by our guns in demanding that all 
Constitutional rights be preserved. If not, we will surely lose both. 

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