Lawmakers Act Against U.N. Gun Controllers

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Boge Quinn

Lawmakers Act Against U.N. Gun Controllers

Wes Vernon
Friday, July 20, 2001

WASHINGTON - A determined effort on Capitol Hill seeks to outlaw
using U.S. taxpayers’ money to implement any U.N. gun control ideas
that violate U.S. law or the Constitution.

Written by Reps. Bob Barr, R-Ga., and Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., the
measure is to be attached to the appropriations bill that covers the
Commerce, State and Justice departments.

The congressmen tried to introduce the measure Wednesday night on
the House floor but had to temporarily withdraw it for "technical
reasons.” Those reasons concern a need to coordinate with the Bush
administration as to exact wording.

The measure has some high-powered cooperation. Chairman Frank R.
Wolf, R-Va., who heads the Appropriations Subcommittee on
Commerce, State and Justice, said in a House colloquy with Barr and
Bartlett, "The administration has expressed concern, and we will be glad
to work with both of the gentlemen with regard to the conference and
language the administration supports.”

Barr, a member of the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Conference on Illicit
Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons, had praised the comments of
U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton in rejecting any United Nations
efforts to interfere with U.S. laws and the Second Amendment. And
there is every confidence on the part of the backers of this measure that
the delay is minor and that the amendment can be fine-tuned and retain
its substance.

There is every intention to fight for this proposal through the House, in
the conference committee where there will be negotiations with the
Senate, and right on up to the president’s desk, where he will be asked
to sign it. Chairman Wolf promised to include the Bartlett-Barr language
in the final conference report.

Bartlett charged that the United Nations would like "to impose
registration, confiscation and destruction of firearms owned by citizens
of the United States, who are otherwise legally allowed to own firearms.
And Americans should not be lulled into complacency by any
assurances to the contrary.

For the benefit of doubters, the lawmaker from Maryland quoted from a
U.N. document dated Jan. 9, 2001, which reads as follows:

"States will establish laws and procedures for the safe and effective
destruction of weapons which are circulating and available in such
quantities as to contribute to high levels of crime and violence.”

To which Bartlett added, "Now … who is going to make the judgment of
when there is enough to do that so that they can come in and confiscate
and destroy our guns?”

"I assure the gentleman his concern is not misplaced,” Barr said to
Bartlett, saying he was familiar with not only the debates in the United
Nations, but with closed-door sessions in New York as a member of the
delegation, as well as having "read in great detail the documents that
are, even as we speak this evening, are being grafted and changed by
the functionaries and the General Assembly members of the United
Nations.”

The congressman from Georgia entered into the Congressional Record
a letter from the National Rifle Association urging lawmakers to "vote
'yes' on the Bartlett-Barr Amendment. The NRA declared the conference
in New York "has the potential for paving the way to recommend highly
restrictive changes in the gun policies of sovereign states,” including
"broad-scale anti-gun propaganda campaigns.”

The U.N., according to Barr, "looks to involve itself in a very substantial
way in domestic U.S. policy in terms of furthering their goal of gun
registration of lawful firearms, recordkeeping, and limitations on
manufacture, the possession, the transfer, and the export of firearms.”

That is pretty inclusive. It doesn’t leave anything out. A blatant attempt to
infringe on American sovereignty should answer any questions that are
raised as to why some people have been concerned for years that:

A), there is a concerted effort to disarm Americans, and

B), the United Nations itself may very well be a stalking horse for a
world government.

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