• Tag Archives 2nd Amendment

  • UN approval of arms trade treaty sets up Obama, Senate showdown

    Posted on by Azrael 1 Comment

    The Obama administration defied a majority of the Senate on Tuesday by voting to approve a United Nations treaty on the trade of small arms and other conventional weapons.

    The treaty, overwhelmingly approved by the U.N., requires countries to create internal mechanisms to ensure that their arms exports aren’t likely to be used to harm civilians or violate human rights laws.

    President Obama is expected to sign the treaty within the next few months, but it faces a tough road to win the two-thirds majority support needed in the Senate for approval.

    It is opposed by the National Rifle Association, which argues the accord violates the Second Amendment by regulating small arms, such as rifles and handguns, and calling for the creation of an “end-user registry.”

    Fifty-three senators voiced their disapproval late last month by voting in favor of a nonbinding amendment to a Senate budget resolution to stop the U.S. from entering the treaty.

    The NRA is pushing a separate resolution from Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) expressing the Senate’s opposition to the treaty.

    “The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty that passed in the General Assembly today would require the United States to implement gun-control legislation as required by the treaty, which could supersede the laws our elected officials have already put into place,” said Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who sponsored the budget amendment.

    “It’s time the Obama administration recognizes it is already a non-starter, and Americans will not stand for internationalists limiting and infringing upon their Constitutional rights.”

    Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican, warned Obama not to sign it.

    “If you sign it, and if the U.S. Senate ratifies the treaty, Texas will lead the charge to have the treaty overturned in court as a violation of the U.S. Constitution,” Abbott wrote to the president.

    Administration officials hailed passage of the treaty, which Secretary of State John Kerry said would strengthen global security while protecting the rights of countries to conduct “legitimate” arms trade.

    Full article: http://thehill.com/b … y-opposed-by-the-nra


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  • PAUL: A duty to preserve the Second Amendment

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    When Congress reconvenes next month, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is expected to bring gun control back to the Senate floor. If this occurs, I will oppose any legislation that undermines Americans’ constitutional right to bear arms or their ability to exercise this right without being subject to government surveillance.

    Restricting Americans’ ability to purchase firearms readily and freely will do nothing to stop national tragedies such as those that happened in Newtown, Conn., and in Aurora, Colo. It will do much to give criminals and potential killers an unfair advantage by hampering law-abiding citizens’ ability to defend themselves and their families.Potentially on the table are new laws that would outlaw firearms and magazines that hold more than just a handful of rounds, as well as require universal “background checks,” which amount to gun registration.We are also being told that the “assault weapons” ban originally introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein is not happening. We can only hope. But in Washington, D.C., bad ideas often have a strange way of coming up again.

    These laws are designed to sound reasonable, but statistics have shown that gun control simply does not work.What constitutes reasonable? If limiting rounds and increasing surveillance were really the solution to curbing gun violence, why should we stop there? Because everyone knows that none of this actually curbs gun violence.

    Gun control itself is unreasonable.Chicago has some of the toughest gun laws in the entire country — and one of the worst gun-crime rates, with more than 500 homicides last year. Compare this to Virginia, where in the past six years, gun sales went up by 73 percent, while violent gun crime fell 24 percent. The types of firearms and clips the left is currently so intent on banning are used in fewer than 2 percent of gun crimes — and how many of those crimes involve registered weapons? Few to none.

    For every national tragedy that happens, there are hundreds if not thousands of examples of Americans preventing similar killings from happening, thanks to the use of personal firearms. Last June, for example, a 14-year-old Phoenix boy shot an armed intruder who broke into his home while he was baby-sitting his three younger siblings. The children were home alone on a Saturday afternoon when an unrecognized woman rang their doorbell. After the 14-year-old boy refused to open the door, he heard a loud bang, which indicated that someone was trying to break into the house. The boy hurried his younger siblings upstairs and collected a handgun from his parents’ room. When the boy rounded the top of the stairs, there was a man standing in the doorway with a gun pointed at him. The boy shot at the intruder and saved the lives of his three younger siblings.

    There have been would-be mass murderers who have walked into schools, churches, shopping malls, movie theaters and other public places who didn’t get very far because, thankfully, an armed citizen was nearby. There have been countless home invasions, armed robberies and other assaults in which lives were saved, thanks to citizens possessing private firearms.These stories are heroic, but they don’t become big headlines. We should all be glad that they don’t become such headlines, thanks to the unsung heroes who prevent them from becoming potential national tragedies.

    Full article: http://www.washingto … amendment-344591833/

     


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  • Push to keep feds out of state gun markets gains momentum

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    States across the country are trying to protect gun ownership from the long arm of Washington by proposing bills declaring that firearms made and kept within their borders are not subject to federal restrictions.

    Nine states have proposed such legislation since President Obama and fellow Democrats in the Senate began trying to tighten federal gun laws in the wake of several mass shootings that occurred within months of each other.

    “There’s a lot of momentum,” Montana activist Gary Marbut told FoxNews.com on Monday.

    Marbut was behind the original Firearms Freedom Act, which says the Commerce Clause allowing Congress to regulate inter-state commerce does not apply to the in-state manufacturing, selling and ownership of firearms. Montana passed the bill in 2009.

    Since then, a host of other states have tried to pass copycat legislation. Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Washington have proposed such legislation since January — following the Dec. 14, 2012, shooting in which 20 first-graders and six adults were killed inside a Newtown, Conn., elementary school.

    However, Montana’s legislation is hardly settled law. Shortly after the law passed in his state, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives wrote Marbut to say federal law still supersedes.

    Marbut acknowledges he wrote the legislation to set up a legal challenge and “roll back a half a century of bad precedent.”

    The bill is scheduled to finally get its day in court when the Ninth Circuit begins oral arguments March 4. Marbut expects to lose in the liberal-leaning court, which includes San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Ore. But he thinks such a decision will put him in a better position to appeal to the country’s highest court.

    Full article: http://www.foxnews.c … reach-on-gun-rights/


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