US sees no need for new UN measures on small arms
LinkThe United States said on Friday it saw no need for new international agreements at a U.N. conference opening next week to weigh a tightening of a five-year-old crackdown on illegal trafficking in small arms.
"The purpose of this conference is simply to follow up on activities authorized by the 2001 conference, and we don't see any need for treaties or agreements coming out of this," said John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
The June 26-July 7 conference was called to review a 2001 U.N. action plan against the $1 billion-a-year trade in small arms, which as defined by the United Nations range from pistols and rifles to grenades, mortars and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles.
The 2001 plan set out broad guidelines for national and international measures to better track arms sales, manage government stockpiles and destroy illicit weapons.
Anti-gun activists say they want the 2006 review conference to back a new treaty or, failing that, international guidelines governing arms transfers. Those would aim to prevent, for example, deals with criminals or terrorists, or for use in a genocide or in violation of a U.N. arms embargo.
Bolton saw "no need for that," he said.
Ahead of the U.N. meeting, the U.S. National Rifle Association, a strong supporter of the George W. Bush administration, has warned its members of a July 4 plot to finalize a U.N. treaty stripping citizens of all nations of the right to own guns -- a charge with no basis in fact.
Americans mistakenly worried about the U.S. Independence Day conspiracy have flooded the world body with more than 100,000 letters demanding the nonexistent treaty's defeat.
"Illicit trafficking of light weapons is something that can exacerbate conflict situations, but the responsible use of firearms is a legitimate part of national life" in the United States, Bolton said.
"We are not out to take guns away from Americans," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Friday.
"The intention is to ensure that guns do not get into the wrong hands and are used for the civil wars that we see around the world," Annan told reporters. "We are often concerned about weapons of mass destruction, and yet most of the killing taking place today, whether in (Sudan's) Darfur or Congo or elsewhere, is done by small arms."
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ughh.. they do realized that this isn't gonna stop terrorist, criminals and civil wars. Most of the countries in the United Nations are just trying to stop the people from rising up and overthrowing their governments by sripping their rights to bear arms. If the government or an organization is unjust, (*Cough* UN *Cough*), we need to be able to bring it down.
"We are not out to take guns away from Americans," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Friday.
"The intention is to ensure that guns do not get into the wrong hands and are used for the civil wars that we see around the world," Annan told reporters.
Cough, cough. Notice he did not say anything about ammo and 'wrong hands' is undefined.
According to UN documents, only law enforcement and military are considered the 'right hands'.
I always thought gun control was being able to put all six rounds thru the same hole.
Cheers fo USA...
"You should sanction me with your army. Wait, you don't have an army! Go sell some medicine bitches!!"
Black Bush.
I stop trusting Kofi Annan in 2002-2003. He can kiss my ass.Originally Posted by BlackRain
Man, I would be scared of the cops if NON of my countryman had guns. That's how the people and the state have our checks-and-balances, being able to **** eachother up. 80 Million gun owners, and lets say only 10% came and fought, that's like 7 million, 8 million vs the WHOLE US Armed Forces of 2 Million?
I would like to see ANY organization take my guns away. Trust me, I'll be fighting.
We're not talking about America, now are we? We're talking about a poor African teen getting an AK put in his hands and going off to raid another village.
Are you going to teach war-torn, impoverished nations the finer points of gun ownership in a democratic society as relating to the Second Amendment? Are you going to teach them the proper function of firearms in civil society? The only way you can effectively prevent them from slaughtering each other, given existing circumstances, is to make guns harder to get. In a stable country like America, the proper role of guns can be debated, and the practical effects are minimal. But in a country torn by chaos, having any central authority is better than having no authority.
Look ar Iraq. Do you think it's legitimate for the government to impose strict gun laws? I don't hear too many people crying about personal rights when US and Iraqi forces confiscate guns in Iraq. As long as there are millions of easily available firearms floating around, anyone who wants to establish order is going to have a hell of a time doing it. True in Iraq, true in many other places.
The only way to teach them from slaughtering each other is to teach them to live with each other. You think if it came down to conflicts they wouldn't find a way to kill one another. I doubt they would say "Oh, we have no guns let's not fight.".
Each family in Iraq is allowed to keep one firearm to protect themselves.
Last edited by ed316; 06-26-2006 at 04:11 PM.
Then this applies then doesn't it?
The United States said on Friday it saw no need for new international agreements at a U.N. conference opening next week to weigh a tightening of a five-year-old crackdown on illegal trafficking in small arms.
"The purpose of this conference is simply to follow up on activities authorized by the 2001 conference, and we don't see any need for treaties or agreements coming out of this," said John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Many countries already ban private gun ownership.
Rwanda and Sierra Leone are two notable examples. Yet, with more than a million people hacked to death in those countries over seven years, were their citizens better off without guns?
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...zIzMzk1MjM3NDc=The British government banned handguns in January 1997 but recently reported that gun crime in England and Wales nearly doubled in the seven years from 1996 to 2003. Since 1996, the rate of serious violent crime has soared by 88 percent; armed robberies by 101 percent; rapes by 105 percent; and homicide by 24 percent.
Australia’s 1996 gun-control regulations banned many types of guns, and the immediate aftermath was similar. While murder rates have remained unchanged, armed-robbery rates averaged 59 percent higher in the eight years after the law was passed (from 1997 to 2004) than in 1995.
The Republic of Ireland banned and confiscated all handguns and all center-fire rifles in 1972, but murder rates rose five-fold by 1974, and in the twenty years after the ban, the murder rate has averaged 114 percent higher than before the ban (never falling below at least 31 percent higher).
Jamaica banned all guns in 1974, but murder rates almost doubled from 11.5 per 100,000 in 1973 to 19.5 in 1977, and soared further to 41.7 in 1980.
Bans haven’t even work in totalitarian countries, even after having been in place for decades.
The former USSR banned private ownership of guns after the Communist revolution and still had much higher murder rates than the U.S. The USSR’s murder rates during its last 15 years, from 1976 to 1991, were between 21 and 48 percent higher than ours.
Did eliminating access to weapons fail simply because the USSR wasn’t totalitarian enough?
So why the perverse effects?
We all want to take guns from criminals, but regulations that primarily disarm law-abiding citizens, not criminals, can actually make crime more likely to occur.
I think its been proven that when you outlaw guns, the only people who don't have them are law abiding citizens, who are then defenseless against criminals who couldn't care less about the law.
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