The UN Small Arms Treaty

Over the Mar 23, 2013 weekend, a bill was passed in the Senate.  You need to be aware, and understand the deeper meanings behind all of this.  The bill that got passed is grandstanding, pure and simple.  More political posturing from the ineffective blowhards that roam the halls of our nation's capital.

Let's start with the rhetoric about the "United Nations Small Arms Treaty."  That's incorrect.  It's really a draft amendment to the UN Arms Trade Treaty, proposed by the Final United Nations Conference on the UN Arms Trade Treaty, 18-28 March 2013.

C'mon, anyone who's ever heard of Google can find this stuff in about ten seconds.  Really.

For those who like to deal in facts (as I do), here's a link to the Arms Trade Treaty amendment text.  Read it for yourself if you want to judge the truth of what I'm about to say.  I'll get back to it in a minute.

First, let's look at the bill that the Senate passed - or at least the Statement of Purpose from that bill.  It says,

To uphold Second Amendment rights and prevent the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.  

Pundits have started yammering.  One anonymous source, currently floating around the web in a viral email claims, "The U.N. Small Arms Treaty: which has been championed by the Obama Administration, would have effectively placed a global ban on the import and export of small firearms.  The ban would have affected all private gun owners in the U.S. and had language that would have implemented an international gun registry on all private guns and ammo."

Sorry, boys and girls, but that's an outright lie.  Either the "source" didn't read the amendment, or they read it and decided to lie through their teeth.

First, the treaty deals with commerce between countries, not who owns what within any given country.  Second, it says that the countries have the right to make their own laws, enforce their own laws, and defend themselves.  It does NOT say that every gun owner is to be listed in a national registry.

So - it doesn't have much to do with the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in any way that I can determine, regardless of what the right-wing conspiracy theorists want you to believe.  Oh, by the way, I'm a right-winger most of the time, myself.  But I have this critical weakness - an addiction to truth.

However, I think the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty and the related Amendment is a crock, for several reasons.

• It classifies small arms into the category of "conventional weapons", grouping them with planes, tanks, missiles, artillery, etc.  It makes no distinction between military small arms and civilian small arms.  A pocket .22-caliber "Saturday Nite Special" qualifies as a conventional weapon under this treaty, the same as an FA-18 Super Hornet attack fighter aircraft.
• It also categorizes all ammunition usable by conventional weapons as munitions, under the same governance of this treaty.  Every box of .22-caliber ammunition to be shipped outside the U.S. would fall under this treaty. 
• It says we would have to create a registry of ALL weapons and munitions being sold or transferred outside the country unless we maintained control of those items in international territories.  In other words, every handgun and box of ammunition made in the U.S. and destined for international resale would be registered.  As would every bomb, plane, ship, missile, and piece of artillery.
• It says we have to provide that registry to all other nations.  This is the point where my hair caught fire and I started screaming obscenities.  And then it goes further, to strongly suggest that this registry be made public.  So, they want us to list every conventional weapon and munition that we're selling internationally, and post that list on some globally-accessible website????  Not in this lifetime, Bubba!

And there's more - but you should take the time to read it yourself.  Information is power.  Arm yourself.

Now, let's get to the Senate politics.  Obviously, the Senate SHOULD HAVE voted almost unanimously against the ratification of the treaty and amendment. That's a no-brainer.  But to tie it to Second Amendment rights is disingenuous.  For those who aren't familiar with that word, it's attorney-speak for liar.

Anyone who wanted to ratify the treaty and amendment would be willing to give away a boatload of our national rights and authority when it comes to arms, weapons, munitions, etc.  It has the potential to cripple some of our big defense industries and would just about kill the international trade for any U.S.-based manufacturers of small guns and ammunition.

Fourty-six senators voted against the Senate bill over the weekend.  That could be viewed as an implied vote FOR the U.N. Treaty and amendment.  Or it could mean that they were just pissed off because someone stuck the Second Amendment reference into the bill's Statement of Purpose.  I know that I am (pissed).  Or it might just mean that they didn't read the U.N. treaty and amendment, and don't have a clue what they're voting about.

I tend to believe the latter.

At any rate, in the interest of full disclosure - here are the Senators who voted AGAINST the Senate bill.  Remember, this list infers a vote of support FOR the U.N. Treaty and amendment.

• Baldwin (D-WI)
• Baucus (D-MT)
• Bennet (D-CO)
• Blumenthal (D-CT)
• Boxer (D-CA)
• Brown (D-OH)
• Cantwell (D-WA)
• Cardin (D-MD)
• Carper (D-DE)
• Casey (D-PA)
• Coons (D-DE)
• Cowan (D-MA)
• Durbin (D-IL)
• Feinstein (D-CA)
• Franken (D-MN)
• Gillibrand (D-NY)
• Harkin (D-IA)
• Hirono (D-HI)
• Johnson (D-SD)
• Kaine (D-VA)
• King (I-ME)
• Klobuchar (D-MN)
• Landrieu (D-LA)
• Leahy (D-VT)
• Levin (D-MI)
• McCaskill (D-MO)
• Menendez (D-NJ)
• Merkley (D-OR)
• Mikulski (D-MD)
• Murphy (D-CT)
• Murray (D-WA)
• Nelson (D-FL)
• Reed (D-RI)
• Reid (D-NV)
• Rockefeller (D-WV)
• Sanders (I-VT)
• Schatz (D-HI)
• Schumer (D-NY)
• Shaheen (D-NH)
• Stabenow (D-MI)
• Udall (D-CO)
• Udall (D-NM)
• Warner (D-VA)
• Warren (D-MA)
• Whitehouse (D-RI)
• Wyden (D-OR

Now, for the truth-impaired in the crowd, here's a little test.  To quote from Sesame Street, "Which of these things is not like the others?"

Sorry.  It's a trick question.  ALL of these things ARE THE SAME (with the possible exception on one Independent).  They're all Democrats.

Does this mean that all the Democrats want to give away our sovereign rights, or that they want to hamstring our defense contractors and manufacturers of guns and ammunition?

Or are they just voting against the Republicans?

I tend to believe the latter.

And this gets us down to the real problem in Washington, D.C.  The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty is a real, current, pressing international issue.  That's the type of thing that these freaking idiots were HIRED to deal with (by hired, I mean elected).

And they would rather stand on either side of the isle trying their best to piss on each other, rather than dealing with pressing issues of national sovereignty and international commerce.

To say they need to be impeached is an understatement.

To say they'll get re-elected because of their ability to dish out pork and government hand-outs is the sad reality.

I'm afraid we're all screwed, and there's not a damned thing we can do about it.

The Hard Questions

I've become convinced that our elected politicians have only two goals.

1. Get re-elected
2. Get their friends elected and re-elected

Everything they do seems to be aimed at these two goals.  Gone is the day of the "gentleman farmer" who goes to Washington to serve the nation for a few years, then returns home.

The net result is that the hard issues are glossed over, and the hard questions are never asked.

Let's take health care as a specific example.  What's the hard question?

Should full access to health-care be a guaranteed American privilege?

Forget about money for a minute.  If you're an American, do you have an intrinsic right to the best health care?  That's the first question that needs to be asked.

The answer appears to be "yes", because anyone can walk into a hospital to receive health care, whether they have money, insurance, or a job.  The hospital won't turn them away, even if there's no chance the patient can pay for the services provided.

This leads us to the second hard question.

Who pays for health care services provided to the indigent and uninsured?

Right now, the real answer is "everyone else".  The cost of these free (unpaid, uncollectable) services is bult into the cost that everyone else pays.  And, since the uninsured can't usually afford basic preventative medicine, these "gratis" services are often rather expensive.  These expenses are spread out over all the bills that everyone else pays.

If the answer to the first question is "yes", then we have a limited number of possible answers to the second question.

1. Socialize medicine and make it a government service, paid by taxes, with equal access to all citizens.
2. Force everyone to buy insurance, with the government providing insurance to the poor.
3. Soak the rich and hope they don't leave the country in response.
4. Leave the current system and spread the cost over all the middle-class citizens who have insurance.
5. Create a caste system with private hospitals for insured patients and government services for the uninsured.

None of these options are ideal, given human nature.  Any option is probably workable.  Some are not acceptable to the American population.  Nobody wants to pay for freeloaders, but we have a long history of social conscience - taking care of the poor and indigent.

We don't have the guts (or callousness) to say, "No insurance, no service!"

So, any health care solution is going to stink.  It's the nature of the beast.  If we provide health care to everybody, someone has to pay for those services.

We just have to figure out who gets the bill.