U.N. Gives Tyranny a Hand
January 2nd 2008
This post title is "U.N. Gives Tyranny a Hand"
This post title is "U.N. Gives Tyranny a Hand"
This article by Dave Kopel is an installment in a 2001 National Review series that documents how dictatorships all over the globe are using the U.N. to promote firearms policies that facilitate genocide.
At the U.N. Small Arms Conference, Iran took the lead in promoting a ban on weapons supplies to non-states. The “non-state actors” clause would require vendors “to supply small arms and light weapons only to governments, or to entities duly authorized by government.” This would make it illegal, for example, to supply weapons to the Kurds or religious minorities in Iran, in case Iranian persecution or genocide drove them to rebellion. Had the provision been in effect in 1776, the sale of firearms to the American Patriots would have been prohibited. Had the clause been in effect during World War II, the transfer of Liberator pistols to the French Resistance, and to many other resistance groups, would have been illegal.
The United States stood firm against this clause, rejecting “compromise” efforts to revise the language, or to insert it into the preamble of the Program of Action. Although Canada pushed hard on this point, the U.S. delegation would not relent. U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton pointed out that the proposal “would preclude assistance to an oppressed non-state group defending itself from a genocidal government.”
Bolton’s statement, by the way, reflects the enormous contribution that Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership has made to gun debate, through historical research demonstrating the victim disarmament is the sine qua non of genocide.
More recent research by constitutional attorney Stephen Halbrook has detailed how the Nazi regime used firearms-control laws, enacted by the democratic Weimar Republic, to disarm potential opponents of the regime, and to facilitate the persecution of Jews.
U.N. Deputy Secretary General Louise Frechette (of Canada) explained that in some parts of the world, an AK-47 could be obtained for $15 or a bag of grain. Small-arms “proliferation erodes the authority of legitimate but weak governments,'’ she complained.
U.S. delegate Faith Whittlesey (ambassador to Switzerland, under Reagan) replied that the U.N. “non-state actors” provision “freezes the last coup. It favors established governments, while taking away rights from individuals. It does not recognize any value higher than peace, such as liberty.”
According to the U.N., any government with a U.N. delegation is a “legitimate” government. This U.N. standard directly conflicts with the Declaration of Independence, which states that the only legitimate governments are those “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
In a letter to the New York Times, answering a Times editorial criticizing the U.S. for not allowing the conference to be used as a tool to disarm civilians, Whittlesey elaborated:
The highest priority of freedom-loving people is liberty, even more than peace. The small arms you demonize often protect men, women and children from tyranny, brutality and even the genocide too frequently perpetrated by governments and police forces. The world’s numerous dictators would be delighted to stem the flow of small arms to indigenous freedom fighters and civilians alike to minimize any resistance.. . .
Continued here: http://firearmslawyer.net/blog/index.php?blog=3&title=u_n_gives_tyranny_a_hand&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
