Ambassador John Bolton Explains Need to Block Back-Door Gun Control Scheme from the United Nations

I’m not a big fan of the United Nations and I’m not a supporter of gun control, so you can imagine how agitated I get when two bad things are combined together.

And that’s exactly what’s happening with a new anti-gun treaty being concocted by the United Nations.

John Bolton, a former U.S. Ambassador to the organization, explains what the other side is trying to achieve.

Gun-control advocates and the Obama administration are rushing to complete negotiations in New York on a proposed international agreement called the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty. They hope to finish the drafting within weeks, perhaps having a document ready for signature so that President Obama could press a lame-duck Senate to ratify it after our Nov. 6 elections.

He also explains why.

Gun-control groups, frustrated by years of failing to impose harsh measures on American firearms owners, have pursued a covert strategy. Instead of constant defeats in Congress and local legislatures, they instead shifted their attention to the international realm, hoping to achieve by indirection what they had consistently failed to do at home.

Simply stated, this is an effort to erode American sovereignty and short-circuit freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

Ambassador Bolton elaborates.

Ostensibly, UNATT is about regulating government-to-government arms transfers or direct sales by manufacturers to foreign governments. But the hidden agenda of the gun controllers is to craft treaty language that, while seemingly innocuous, has long-range implications for the use and ownership of guns here in America. The real danger lies in vague, ambiguous stipulations gun-control advocates could later cite as requiring further domestic restraints. In other words, they hope to use restrictions on international gun sales to control gun sales at home. Indeed, the theme underlying the negotiations is that the private ownership of guns is inherently dangerous. There is, of course, little doubt why dictatorships and authoritarian regimes don’t want their oppressed citizens to have weapons — but such positions do not merit American support.

And he provides some background, just in case anyone has any doubts about the true intentions of the treaty advocates.

The U.S. has a long history of respecting the individual ownership of firearms. It is against this legitimate tradition of private ownership that gun-control advocates are exerting their efforts. Their strategy surfaced most clearly in 2001 at a UN conference aiming to restrict international sales of “small arms and light weapons,” a precursor to the current negotiations. I was part of the Bush administration’s diplomacy to block this effort, which we ultimately succeeded in doing. During the 2001 debate, I spoke at the UN General Assembly in New York, and the reaction to my remarks revealed the gun-controllers’ hidden agenda. I said merely that the United States would not agree to any proposed treaty that would violate our Second Amendment freedoms. From the gun-control lobby’s reaction, you would have thought I said something outrageous or even dangerous. In truth, they knew we had uncovered their agenda and spiked it.

Fortunately, there’s no risk (at least at this moment) of the treaty getting approved by the U.S. Senate.

Significantly, a bipartisan letter signed by 58 senators has already rejected any treaty that seeks, however cleverly, to impose gun-control obligations on the U.S. The gun-control crowd’s strategy of trying to do through treaties what it cannot accomplish in America’s domestic political process is not unique to that issue. We have seen and will undoubtedly see many more examples of frustrated statists, unable to prevail in free and open debate, seeking to take their issues global, hoping to find more sympathetic audiences. Stopping UNATT will be one clear way to send a message that such strategies are doomed to failure.

But once the treaty begins to circulate around the world, and gets approval from the various dictatorships, kleptocracies, and thug regimes (as well as support from the milquetoast nations of Europe), then there will be pressure on the United States to join with “world opinion” and ratify the agreement.

In other words, it will be like the Law of the Sea Treaty. Another misguided scheme that sits on the shelf, while statists wait for an opportune moment to impose it on the nation.

For more information on the folly of gun control, you can watch some good videos here, here, and here. I also recommend this Thomas Sowell column, this Cato Institute study, this Stephen Hunter column in the Washington Post, and my NRA-TV appearance on the importance of gun ownership as a safeguard against societal breakdown.

P.S. I image that the statists will attempt to use the murders in Colorado to advance their agenda, just as happened after the shootings in Arizona. Heck, we’ve already seen the left falsely report that the Colorado killer was a member of the Tea Party, which also is what happened after the Arizona killings.

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Much-Deserved Abuse for the Crooks and Scoundrels in Washington

Every couple of weeks, I share the best politically oriented one-liners from the late-night comics.

While I enjoy the laughs as much as anybody, there’s a serious point to be made. Politicians deserve mockery.

They are not our “leaders.” They are compulsive narcissists who are trying to compensate for losing student council elections in the 6th grade.

And when they achieve their dreams of wielding power over the rest of us, they routinely engage in corrupt behavior just so they can try to buy our votes in the next election. Using other people’s money, of course.

And because they put themselves about the country 99 percent of the time, they’ve burdened us with reckless and unsustainable entitlement programs that have us on a trajectory for Greek-style fiscal chaos.

So enjoy, but also have scorn.

Jay Leno

• Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told a congressional committee the economic recovery is weakening. But the good news is most Americans will not be affected because they had no idea there was a recovery.
• Jobless claims rose again by 35,000 last week. Not good. But it does show that if you’re unsuccessful in this country, you didn’t do it on your own. You had help. Thank you, President Obama.
• Well, President Obama and first lady Michelle went to see the U.S. Olympic basketball team play Brazil the other day. And during the game, they were put on the kiss cam. At first, they didn’t kiss and the crowd booed them. Then the camera went back to them. And they finally did kiss. Isn’t that amazing? A politician in Washington caught on camera kissing a woman he’s actually married to?
• Romney’s surrogate, John Sununu, he’s in hot water for saying, “I wish President Obama would learn how to be an American.” Well, that’s kind of insulting, isn’t it? President Obama spends money he doesn’t have. He loves to skip work and play golf. He sneaks away from his wife to eat fatty foods. What is more American than that?
• Ralph Lauren says the uniforms they make for the 2014 Winter Olympics will be made right here in the USA — using our own old-fashioned illegal immigrants.
• Well, Harry Reid and other members of Congress, they’re just furious over this Olympic uniform deal. He says we should burn the uniforms, and it’s an embarrassment and a disgrace. Not as embarrassing as Congress constantly borrowing money from the Chinese, but still embarrassing.
• The big news in Washington now is the disappearance of Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. Nobody can find him. He’s completely disappeared. People think he’s either in rehab or he might have been given his own show on CNN.
• I was sweating like Mitt Romney trying to differentiate between Romneycare and Obamacare.
• There’s talk that if Jennifer Lopez leaves “American Idol” they’re going to bring back Paula Abdul. Insiders say Paula was chosen over Chief Justice John Roberts, who producers felt was too unpredictable.
• The White House is now urging Americans not to “read too much” into last week’s jobs report. In fact, they said it would be best if you didn’t read it at all.
• Mitt Romney told the crowd at an NAACP conference that if he were elected president he would fight for all millionaires, black or white.
• At a Democratic fundraiser in Seattle earlier this week, Vice President Biden said that Romney’s economic policies were “George Bush on steroids” — as opposed to Obama’s policies, which are “Jimmy Carter on Ambien.”
• In Mexico, the loser of their presidential election is accusing the winner of election fraud. He says the winner bought millions of votes. To which Mitt Romney said, “You can do that?”

David Letterman

• After years of criticism for his poor record on boosting employment, President Barack Obama is pleased to announce today he created a job. Congratulations to Amelio Markham from Smithsburg, Maryland, on his new job, making charts illustrating President Obama’s downward spiraling approval ratings.
• Steven Tyler and another of the “American Idol” judges, Jennifer Lopez — fired, gone, they’re not coming back. Well, that’s two more jobs lost under Obama.
• Wall Street says they prefer Mitt Romney for president. And by God, who could question Wall Street’s judgment?
• The American League was defeated 8-0. The American League also lost the 2011 All-Star Game as well as the 2010 All-Star Game. Under President Obama, America’s own league is on a losing streak.

Conan

• According to a new report, the average Canadian is now richer than the average American. This is bad news for Americans and worse news for those Mexicans who now have to tunnel all the way to Canada.

Jimmy Kimmel

• A new study claims that for the first time ever, Canadians are wealthier than Americans. We are their Mexico now, it turns out.
•  Over the past five years the value of the Canadian household has risen above the American household. I think most of that came from Justin Bieber and he belongs to us now.
• Maybe the reason Mitt Romney doesn’t want to release his tax returns is because Mitt Romney is Batman.
• John Boehner, who is speaker of the House of Representatives, is super tan, he cries, and he drinks. He should be speaker of the “Jersey Shore” house.
• Mitt Romney gave a speech at the annual NAACP conference in Houston. Why, I don’t know. Maybe he confused NAACP with NASCAR.
• The event got off to a bad start when Romney pulled up in front of the convention center and he instinctively locked the doors to his limo.

I realize it’s inappropriate to interrupt this string of one-liners with a serious point, but read this if you’re curious why Canadians are now doing so well. To compensate, here’s a joke about American leftists migrating to Canada after the Tea Party election of 2010.

Jimmy Fallon

• A new CBS poll found that 47 percent of voters are supporting Mitt Romney, while 46 percent support Obama. Well, it makes sense, because if Romney wins, it’s definitely going to be thanks to the one percent.
• During last night’s USA-Brazil basketball game, President Obama gave Michelle a kiss when they were shown on the kiss cam. That’s cute. It explains why everyone was like, “Quick, put him on the fix the economy cam!”
• Yesterday in Cincinnati, Jerry Springer announced that he is endorsing Obama. Don’t get too excited. Obama still has to win over Judge Judy and Maury.

Craig Ferguson

• Batman is a billionaire who doesn’t trust the system to get the job done. He has a butler and an awesome car that gets like two miles to the gallon. He is the most Republican superhero of all time! Batman is a Republican.

You can read more of these amusing jokes, put together by the good folks at Newsmax.com, by looking here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

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