Articles show trend toward gun control

Outdoors in Alaska, by Howard Delo

Ordinarily, I wouldn't write about the United Nations in an outdoor column such as this. I want to tell you about two articles from widely differing sources concerning the same topic I came across in the past week.

The first article was in the Oct. 10 Anchorage Daily News, "Groups launch new campaign to curb trade in weapons." The article reported on a recently released study that found small arms to be widely available around the world. In the report, the United States' war on terrorism was singled out as having "fueled weapons proliferation rather than focusing political will on controlling arms."

The study further stated that this widespread proliferation of small arms and their use has become an integral part of daily life in many parts of the world. Many of the worst misuses occur in countries with repressive governments, human rights abusers and criminals.

Amnesty International, Oxfam and another group released the study. These three groups have united in establishing a "control arms" campaign that is promoting a new international treaty designed to control small arms transfers, and which addresses regional and local arms control measures.

To demonstrate support for their draft International Arms Trade Treaty, the groups are sponsoring a petition drive to collect one million signatures worldwide. The groups hope to have the United Nations and its member countries adopt this treaty by 2006.

The second article is in the October 2003 issue of Muzzle Blasts, the official magazine of the National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association. The executive vice president of the NMLRA, John A. Miller, was invited this summer to join the American delegation attending a United Nations meeting where the member states were to report on what they were doing to prevent the illicit distribution of small arms and light weapons. To quote Miller, "While the goals of the program sound positive, the devil is in the details."

Miller stated that hundreds of anti-gun documents were distributed at the United Nations meeting. He continued, "There were several countries particularly active in the anti-gun effort of the United Nations. Some of them you would expect -- Japan, England and South Africa. Others, such as Canada, may come more as a surprise. Mexico is particularly opposed to civilian ownership of firearms as the following quote suggests: the representative of the Mexican government made the statement that while this conference is focusing on the illicit dealing in small arms, civilian ownership of firearms is a serious problem and should be addressed through a binding treaty in the future."

In his article, Miller detailed the extreme anti-gun bias being shown in the United Nations. He pointed out that the end goal of this whole process was for the member nations to meet again in 2006 and adopt a binding treaty on SALW similar to the landmine treaty from a few years ago.

Miller continues, "At this time the only barrier between a binding treaty on small arms and light weapons is the United States delegation. They have strongly and consistently insisted that the only issue for the United Nations is the illegal transfer of SALW, not civilian ownership and possession of firearms. If there is a change in the United States administration in 2004, the strength of opposition to United Nations control of civilian ownership of firearms could be significantly weakened."

You might want to reread that last paragraph again. The thrust of the proposed treaty isn't just controlling the illegal small arms trade. It also involves United Nations control of civilian ownership of firearms, a right we are guaranteed under the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, but which might be subverted in a United Nations treaty.

This isn't something that is just going to go away. Once again, freedom isn't free -- it demands vigilance and attention to things you wouldn't think had much effect on an average Valley resident.

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist living in Big Lake. Send your comments and ideas to editor@frontiersman.com, or call (907) 352-2268 and leave a message for Howard.