President Barack Obama’s days are numbered – and he’s making an all-out, last-minute push to bring the UN. Arms Trade Treaty to American ratification, over the objections of the National Rifle Association, the U.S. Congress and pro-Second Amendment citizens.
What’s the big worry?
Mostly, the chance for the treaty to impose a national gun registry on every owner in America.
“The language [of the treaty] is so vague it could mean anything,” said Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, to the Daily Signal. “A lot could be done to rationalize gun control. The treaty has no prohibitions, no though-shalt-nots. President Obama has for some time used a … cell phone and a pen and not the Constitution or even a treaty for taking action.”
As the Constitution states, the Senate is in charge of consenting to and ratifying all treaties with foreign entities – the president is limited to only bringing the treaty to Congress for consideration.
But once again, Obama is intent on doing a run- around of Congress and bypassing constitutional procedure – mostly because he knows the treaty wouldn’t pass muster in the Senate, where both Republicans and Democrats have expressed their opposition. Secretary of State John Kerry signed the treaty three years ago – an action that conveyed the administration’s support for the measure, but that had little practical effect on U.S. soil.
But at the recent Second Conference of State Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty in Geneva, the U.S. representative to the conference, William Malzahn, said the White House was still trying to press forward the measure and bring it to full effect.
As the Daily Signal reported, Malzahn said: “The United States remains committed to the Arms Trade Treaty, which we signed in September 2013. We are still working on the package to transmit the treaty to the U.S. Senate for its advice and consent to ratification. It is not clear when we will complete this, but we are actively working on it. … As we pursue ratification, let me assure everyone that the United States is already fully compliant with the requirements of [treaty] as the U.S. national control system exceeds those requirements.”
Seventy-nine countries have ratified the treaty so far.
And here’s a look at some of the treaty language that Pratt calls vague: “Each State Party shall establish and maintain a national control system, including a national control list, in order to implement the provisions of this Treaty … Each State Party is encouraged to include in those records: the quantity, value, model/type, authorized international transfers of conventional arms covered under Article 2(1), conventional arms actually transferred, details of exporting State (s), importing State(s), transit and trans-shipment
State(s), and end users, as appropriate.”
Mexico is trying to pin 70 percent of its gun- related violence on weapons that had made their way into the country from America, and saying that the United States, for that reason, ought to ratify the treaty.
But as Ted Bromund, a senior research fellow in U.S.-Angle relations at the Heritage Foundation said, the problem of U.S. manufactured guns ending up in Mexico is a border issue, not a gun issue.
“The smuggling of guns from the U.S. into Mexico, the smuggling of guns from the U.S. to any country, is already illegal,” he said, to the Daily Signal. “The problem is that the border is not controlled. Guns go south because the border is open. The answer is effective border patrol by the U.S. and Mexico. Mexico will never talk about that.”