Look at items 6 and 7 in the U.N. letter and who voted for this SELL-OUT below:
Hmm. May be. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
But notice that even Snopes admits there is a UN Disarmament Commission.
Nina
Of course there is an UNODA! But the purpose of UNODA is making Washington destroy its hydrogen bombs, and keeping the CIA from smuggling guns to terrorists. UNODA is trying to disarm the US government, not you. Only the NRA tells the lie that UNODA could somehow affect your legal weapons. Other countries just don't care if US citizens can potentially shoot their own politicians or not.
These 55 Senators voted to prevent a treaty, which requires a 2/3 ratification, from coming to a vote. Why do you believe a majority of R's & D's, voting to deny themselves a vote they would win, could possibly be acting in your interest?
Harland Harrison
LP of San Mateo County CA
Harland,
Snopes was the first place I went when I saw that letter too -- it was clearly too good (or in this case too bad) to be true. But I do wonder about the origins of it. Someone on our side trying to whip up opposition to the UN or to Democrats in Congress by dishonest means? Or someone on the other side trying to make us look bad by spreading readily disprovable false rumors?
The majority of the Senate isn't always wrong though. If I were a Senator and knew a treaty was unconstitutional, I would vote to prevent it from coming to a vote too. Even if you believe you have the votes to defeat it, why take a chance? I seem to recall the Senate voted something like 98-0 against implementing the Kyoto accords mandating costly limits on industrial activity. Maybe most of them did not vote that way out of concern for the Constitution or freedom, but even so I would contend they still acted in our interests.
The United Nations *does* have a gun control agenda (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_Trade_Treaty). Supposedly this treaty would only apply to the import and export of firearms, not to domestic sales and transfers. But even if that's true, which is disputed, it is an authoritarian restriction on free trade and a step toward more restrictive forms of gun control. Even if it goes no further than advertised, such a prohibition would already impact people in the United States by making it illegal to sell to overseas buyers, arms that could eventually be used in legitimate popular uprisings against oppressive regimes.
Which points to a motive for "other countries" (i.e. governments and regimes) to want civilians in the United States disarmed. If they don't want people under their jurisdictions to have the means to rise up and overthrow them, they undoubtedly perceive a self-interest in not having people in other countries setting a "bad example".
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
P.S. - The statement at the end of the original forwarded (fake) letter, "This is exactly how Hitler began his dictatorship, by taking away the ownership of guns," is also incorrect. Hitler was of course a virulent statist and as such supported gun control, but those laws were already in place in Germany before the rise of the Nazis, who merely kept them in place. If I recall correctly, the Hitler regime even rearmed German civilians to some extent later in the war because they wanted them to be able to resist the invading Allies.
Starchild,
I don't think the fake document came from anybody on your side. Some Republicans created it for letters like the one that accompanied the forgery. They use anti-Obama, anti-UN, anti-Democrat rhetoric, and they probably originated it to collect money from racist and xenophobic constituents.
No good can come from not bringing a treaty to the Senate floor. It just means that the voters
will find out less about what the government is doing.
The Arms Trade Treaty was approved by 154 to 3. The votes against were North Korea, Iran, and Syria. Were those three governments the only ones interested in freedom?
US guns are not flowing from the legal civilian market to "popular uprisings". Look at what is happening in Mexico. Armed gangs are taking over the country by selling drugs to the US illegally and importing
weapons from the US illegally.
harland