A Trifle Naive

If there's anything the more fair-minded journalists of the world simply must learn, it's not to take politicians' overt statements of intention as sincere:

UNITED NATIONS – American Second Amendment rights and U.S. foreign policy interests could be directly threatened by the latest wording of a United Nations draft treaty seeking control over international trade in conventional weapons, FoxNews.com has learned....

The latest draft bars weapons transfers to “non-state actors” – which, by definition, include private citizens.

While treaty supporters say the provision speaks to a long-stated goal of denying weapons to terrorists, many experts warn of wider consequences.

“The ATT will not limit the ability of terrorists to acquire arms. The reason for this is simple: The UN has never defined terrorism, because some member states insist that terrorist groups like Hamas are struggling against so-called foreign occupation,” Ted Bromund, senior research fellow with the Washington-based Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, told the conference last week.

Is it really necessary to point out that the United Nations is dominated by anti-libertarian regimes? That those regimes have an obvious interest in preventing their subjects from acquiring the means of resistance or revolt? That anti-firearms initiatives such as the ATT are perennial at the UN? That when a similar resolution was introduced there in 2002, President George W. Bush immediately rejected it as a device to "freeze the last regime in place" -- ?

Isn't it completely obvious that they who wield political power would prefer that it not be checked by citizen power -- the ability to rise up and dethrone the political class willy-nilly? Are we really so detached from history that we don't remember that immediately upon rising to power, Hitler disarmed the civilian population of Germany?

Has the government-controlled education system made us that numb to the consequences of public policy? Is that the explanation for Barack Obama's continued near-majority support?

And of course, there's this to consider:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. [Article VI, Section 2; emphasis added]

A treaty duly ratified by the Senate and signed by the president effectively becomes an article of the Constitution. Though jurists have argued for decades over whether a Constitutional provision can legitimately (NB: that's not the same as legally) bind the private citizen, the ATT would provide an immediate rationale for the registration (and ultimately, for the confiscation) of all firearms owned by private citizens (i.e., persons not under arms in any branch of the military, nor employed as law enforcement officers by any level of government).

Under the Vienna Convention, to which the United States is a signatory, all that's required for the ATT to have binding force is that the president or his delegate sign it. It need not ever be brought to the Senate for ratification -- and you can bet the mortgage money that, with the Democrats in control of as many as forty votes there, it would never have even a chance to be voted down.

This is a last-stand sort of gambit. With Barack Obama in the Oval Office, the overwhelming probability is that some form of this monstrosity will be signed, and that it will not protect the rights of the private citizen under the Second Amendment.

We will hear about how the treaty is merely "a stroke against terrorism."
We will be told that Americans' right to keep and bear arms will be respected..."within reason," of course.
When some patriot asks about the intent behind newly passed federal registration laws for all firearms, required by the treaty, and whether such laws don't presage confiscation, we will be told "Oh, you know we would never use it for that!"
When another Columbine-like, Aurora-like, or Fort Hood-like atrocity occurs, we will be told -- in tones of deepest regret, of course -- that private firearms possession has become just too dangerous to permit it to continue.
And we will regret not having risen up to prevent this unconscionable infringement of the rights of a free, self-governing people.

Don't be a naive. Prepare!