Here Come the Black Helicopters!

whatsoever—on our Constitution or on the fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms.”¹⁷

Ted R. Bromund, senior research fellow in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, at the Heritage Foundation, warns that the ATT is what he calls an “aspirational” treaty, meaning that it sets goals and is less specific about how to achieve them.

He warns that “Americans should realize that many of the risks to US sovereignty posed by the ATT and other aspirational treaties cannot be fully addressed by legislative action, because these risks are inherent in any effort to negotiate vague, aspirational, and universal treaties in a world full of dictatorial states. The best defense against encroachments on US sovereignty—including the ability to conduct foreign policy—rests with oversight by elected officials and the vigilance of American citizens.”¹⁸

The combination of the aspirations of the treaty signatories to curtail small arms throughout the world and the enforcement mechanisms built into the document spell bad news for our Second Amendment freedoms if we ratify the ATT.

HILLARY’S SECRET STRATEGY FOR IMPOSING GUN CONTROLS

NRA president Wayne LaPierre announced in July 2012 that his organization had secured the commitment of fifty-eight US Senators to oppose ratification of the Arms Trade Treaty if it contains any regulation of civilian firearms—far more than the thirty-four required to block Senate ratification. And, on July 26, 2012, fifty-one Senators said they would vote against ratification in its current form. Obama, knowing that if Hillary signed the treaty, as she had pledged to do on July 27, the day after the senatorial letter, the gun issue would become front and center in the presidential race. So the administration pulled back in a tactical retreat and the signing scheduled for that day was canceled. End of story? No way!

Here’s what the play is: The United Nations General Assembly will likely approve the treaty by a two-thirds vote before election day in the US. Then the requisite sixty-five nations will sign and ratify the treaty. That sets its provisions in stone. Obama and Hillary will keep silent until after the election. Then they will sign the treaty—and Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, will probably never bring it up for a vote. Knowing he would lose any ratification vote, Reid will just let the treaty take effect under the Vienna Convention—without any approval by the Senate. If President Obama is reelected, he will, of course, refuse to renounce the treaty and it will take effect without a vote of our elected representatives.

The only way to stop the treaty is to defeat Obama and/or elect a Republican Senate.

REPEAL THE REAGAN DOCTRINE

Bromund points out that the ATT is likely to mean one thing to the world’s democracies but something quite different for its tyrannical dictators. He points out that many of the nations that will sign the ATT are “dictatorships. Thus, the treaty will on the one hand recognize that states such as Syria have the right to buy and sell arms and on the other hand require them to establish effective systems of import and export control that, like the current US system, consider the human rights consequences of arms transfers.”

But he points out that “this is a fantasy: If a state like Syria genuinely wanted to establish such a system, the treaty would not be necessary. The ATT will effectively bind only the democracies that accept it.” And, he notes, “the failure of other states to live up to their commitments under the ATT will not cause its restrictions on the US to lapse.”¹⁹

Because the treaty is so deliberately vague, Bromund is troubled. If the treaty comes up for ratification, the Senate will find it difficult to offer informed advice and consent on the ATT because its meaning, and thus the commitments arising from it, are so poorly defined. This will also open the door for US allies with a strong commitment to multilateral institutions, left-wing non-governmental organizations, and dictatorships to pressure the US—and US businesses—to accept their interpretations of the treaty, which will seek to impinge further on US freedom of action. Finally, it will empower US officials to interpret the ATT as they see fit, which, by asking the Senate to write a blank check, raises further concerns about the effectiveness of the Senate’s advice and consent role and the defense of Second Amendment freedoms.

Bromund worries that the treaty will make it impossible for the US to support freedom-loving movements throughout the world. Since the ATT will oblige signatories “not to circumvent the import control systems of other signatories,” he warns that it might enable Iran to condemn the US for violating the ATT if it decided to arm Iranian rebels. The entire future of the Reagan Doctrine—the US support for human rights and pro-freedom rebellions throughout the world—might be imperiled.

Remember that it was the importation of arms to Bosnian rebels in the 1990s that held the Serbian forces at bay and reduced the carnage of their ethnic cleansing. Would the ATT stop the US from sending arms to Africa to prevent a repetition of the Rwanda massacre? Would we be obliged to respect the government of Sudan and not arm the Darfur refugees?

Writing in the New York Post, Heritage Foundation fellow Peter Brookes calls the idea of American participation in the ATT “foolish” and urges us to avoid it “like the plague.”²⁰

He points out, for example, that the treaty would likely bar the US from supplying arms to Taiwan since the UN recognizes only one Chinese government—the one in Beijing—for both the mainland and Formosa. He argues that arms shipments to Taiwan would be illegal under the treaty since the government in Taipei would technically be an insurgent entity, barred from receiving arms under the ATT.

Brookes also notes, “The treaty will also develop a list of criteria that will call upon states to keep arms out of insurgents’ hands or prevent the prolonging of a conflict. Sounds nice—but what if, for instance, we find a group at some point that we want to support that is fighting an evil government? Can’t do it.”²¹

But then Brookes articulates the coup de grace: “[W]ho really expects state sponsors of terrorism to stop arming groups like Hamas and Hezbollah in the Middle East, the FARC in Latin America and the Taliban and the Lashkar-e-Taiba in South Asia because of a piece of paper signed at the United Nations? Come on.”²²

This treaty is one that will not stop the arms trade. It will not limit the sale by governments of arms to signatory nations. It may stop freedom forces from being able to resist tyranny in their countries. And its implementation by a UN agency—with no further Senate or congressional oversight once the president’s signature is dry on the treaty—could and likely would be used to abuse, override, and limit our Second Amendment right to bear arms.

(Remember what we said earlier. All international treaties, under the Supremacy Clause of our Constitution, have the force of constitutional law and may not be contradicted by state or federal legislation. The ATT would effectively repeal the Second Amendment.)

PART THREE UN Sovereignty At Sea Treaty: A Third World Tax on America

Frustrated by the refusal of the United States and Western European nations to give them the foreign aid to which they feel entitled, the third world nations have banded together to create a vehicle to seize our wealth. They have come up with a way to intercept American and Western revenues before they even reach our treasuries and to divert them to their own needs—often directly into their autocratic rulers’ bank accounts. Troubled by how difficult it is to persuade Congress to vote them money, they have decided to allocate revenue to themselves directly from our offshore oil and mineral drilling. And, once we sign the treaty, we will have nothing to say about it.