By Alan J Chwick & Joanne D Eisen
USA – -(Ammoland.com)- The global population does not understand American hunger for personal weapons. Our closets are bloated with weapons and ammunition, yet we crave more. We can’t seem to get enough.
Part of our behavior is because personal weapons are great for the defense of ourselves and our families. We know that the government is not able to protect us NOW, in this very moment. We know that during certain major crises, such as a massive flood, the government cannot protect us tomorrow.
But we want our guns for far more than our loved ones lives. Our guns mark us as free men and women. We American gun owners are the final bastion of freedom on Earth in this era.
We have been lied to about how dangerous our behavior is to our loved ones in order to frighten us into peacefully giving up our weapons for their promised safety. And we have been falsely demonized. We could use a President who is firmly on our side because his sons are firmly on our side.
But some of us, close to 20% of Republicans, are so f’ing stubborn that they refuse to support Trump because he’s too crude and not conservative enough. You’ve heard all the reasons why Hillary Clinton should not be elected, but that may still not be enough for you to vote for Donald Trump.
Let us give you one more. The new president will have a great deal to say about the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). Hillary can support, aid and strengthen the current ATT, or Donald can keep it on its present track of certain failure, which will be terribly frustrating to its proponents.
Although the ATT has not been ratified by our Senate, President Obama has signed it, thus giving it more global gravitas than it should have.
Trump Would Cut US Funding of ATT
A new president, by the name of Hillary Clinton, might boost the failing treaty with extra US funding. According to Ted Bromund of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom and Heritage Foundation, Obama has already agreed to pay our share and to also subsidize costs for other nations at the next preliminary meeting to be held in 2017. Trump would be too economical to fall for such an idea.
Bromund cautions that the US, who is a non voting nation because we haven’t ratified the ATT, that “the U.S. should flatly refuse to make any contributions to any voluntary funds established by the treaty or to the treaty secretariat, and should ensure that the secretariat and any other treaty institutions have a strictly limited scope and budget.” He noted that the treaty as written cannot be changed until 2020 and warned that the US should not allow the treaty to be expanded.
An expanded, strengthened treaty is the difference between the messy ’success‘ or a quick failure of the ATT. Without US help now, the ATT may never achieve even a modicum of success. With US aid, the proponents of the treaty might become strong enough to force acceptance of seemingly simple regulations that would weaken our Second Amendment.
For example, there are calls to strengthen the treaty via ‘treaty universalization‘ which is the goal of increasing the membership. That is, we here in the US would be inundated with propaganda designed to urge citizens to accept ratification by our Senate.
Countries which have neither signed nor ratified the treaty would find themselves under great pressure to do so. Propaganda is costly. Who would pay?
At this time, 82 states have signed and ratified the treaty, and 51 have signed it only, i.e. no ratification. There are presently about 200 nations on Earth. A universalized treaty might be strong enough so that we would be fighting for our Second Amendment on an additional, global, front.
The ATT proponents are trying to close the loopholes that caused previous control schemes to fail, but the ATT is already in trouble. Even if proponents were able to include everything they desired, they are already lamenting the taste of its failure. Its proponents are valiantly trying to prop it up before new regulations can be explored in 2020.
However, the problems of the ATT stem from human nature, and proponents write their treaty clauses from their philosophy of disarmament. Disarmament, especially at this time of global stress, is contrary to the perceived survival needs of individuals and governments.
It may not be the treaty itself that we will fight, but the never-ending frustration and passion of the proponents who have not verbalized the next control attempt when this one fails. They have thrown all their cleverness and strength into this treaty; it is their final scheme and they have nothing new.
Failed Gun Control
Holding governments to policies that provide justice and prosperity for civilians, would lead to reduced global violence. Such a path would succeed more than the attempt to control the misuse of arms by civilians, para military groups and governments. So far, the policy of weapons control has not been successful.
The treaty is suffering from non-compliance. Ted Bromund tells us, “outside Europe, few nations are complying even nominally with the most basic treaty [reporting] requirements.” Why would nations submit all of their arms data to a ‘transparent,’ that is, public, treaty database so that all frenemies* would know their business? [Editors Note: More importantly the non complying countries do not want to report on military sale of arms, the only effect ATT will have on these counties is over private citizens access to weapons.]
Already, even before the treaty is fully implemented and fully universalized, proponents are criticizing the UK, the US and Canada for arms exports to Saudi Arabia who, they say, is using these arms in the civil war in Yemen. Why would sovereign nations, who are paying the bills, tolerate this critical behavior?
Ray Acheson of Reaching Critical Will, a pro-disarmament Non Government Organization, said, “the practice of the UK and the US both indicate that states parties and signatories alike are at best interpreting their obligations under the treaty in a manner inconsistent with all of the treaty’s objects and purposes.” She continues, “Concerns have also been raised about Canadian arms transfers to Nigeria, Columbia, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, Thailand, and Turkey.”
We don’t think that non-compliance of nations will change. With about half the global nations already producing at least some weapons, we can’t imagine that weapons flows will be controlled in the foreseeable future. After all, the strongest Arms Trade Treaty will need to deal with a black market that has rarely been controllable.
If the treaty hangs on, there will be a multi-group skirmishing between the black market, weapons producing countries, weapons purchasing countries, ATT proponents, and international crime fighters.
Our Second Amendment could get very tattered as crazed treaty proponents who see yet another failure developing fight to the bitter end. The treaty needs to fail before the proponents can ramp up a bloated treaty bureaucracy and and before they get their slimy hands into the global finances they crave.
With Donald Trump as President, less damage will occur because the ATT will fail faster and sooner. The treaty will become meaningless.
So, vote Hillary Clinton (or not at all) and inherit a controlling Arms Trade Treaty, plus all of her NASTY baggage. Or vote Donald Trump and maintain your freedoms. You know what we have now, and you know that Clinton WILL maintain the current status quo, so take a chance. Change is always good for the US!
The choice rests in your hands.
(* – Frenemy: An oxymoron and a portmanteau of “friend” and “enemy” that can refer to either an enemy pretending to be a friend or a friend pretending to be an enemy.)
About the authors:
Alan J Chwick has been involved with firearms much of his life, and is the Managing Coach (Ret.) of the Freeport Junior (Marksmanship) Club, Division of the Freeport NY Revolver & Rifle Association, Freeport, NY. He has now escaped from New York State to South Carolina. Alan J Chwick – AJChwick@iNCNF.org | @iNCNF
Joanne D Eisen, DDS (Ret.) practices dentistry on Long Island, NY. She has collaborated and written on firearm politics for the past 25-years, and is a Senior Fellow in Criminology at the Independence Institute in Denver, CO. She has also escaped from New York State, but to Virginia. Joanne D Eisen – JoanneDEisen@cs.com