Global small arms treaty | April 4, 2012
Welcome to the party, Pat; Buchanan goes pro-gun v. the U.N
Dave Workman
Seattle Gun Rights Examiner
Syndicated columnist Pat Buchanan may be a little late to the party with his Wednesday article about the United Nations threat to American gun owners – a battle that Bellevue’s Alan Gottlieb has been fighting for some time, as this column noted – but it appears he brought something to the table.
In today’s piece, appearing in New Jersey’s Asbury Park Press, Buchanan notes:
According to Sen. Rand Paul, the U.N. “Small Arms Treaty” will almost surely mandate tougher licensing requirements to own a gun, require the confiscation and destruction of unauthorized civilian firearms, call for a ban on the trade, sale and private ownership of semi-automatic weapons, and create an international gun registry.
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He also reports, quoting the ammo.net website, that “tax revenues from the sale of firearms and ammunition have gone up 48 percent since 2008.” That means more Amereicans are buying guns and ammunition.
According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s weekly Bullet Points newsletter:
The March 2012 NSSF-adjusted National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) figure of 1,189,152 is an increase of 20.0 percent over the NSSF-adjusted NICS figure of 990,840 in March 2011. For comparison, the unadjusted March 2012 NICS figure of 1,715,125 reflects a 19.3 percent increase from the unadjusted NICS figure of 1,437,709 in March 2011.
This marks the 22nd straight month that NSSF-adjusted NICS figures have increased when compared to the same period the previous year.
The adjusted NICS data were derived by subtracting out NICS purpose code permit checks used by several states such as Kentucky, Iowa and Michigan for CCW permit application checks as well as checks on active CCW permit databases.
Though not a direct correlation to firearms sales, the NSSF-adjusted NICS data provide a more accurate picture of current market conditions. In addition to other purposes, NICS is used to check transactions of firearms sales and transfers on new and used handguns and long guns.
Buchanan notes that America is “an armed camp, with the South and Midwest the most heavily armed.” Evidently, Buchanan doesn’t visit much along the Rocky Mountains or the great high prairie country between the Rockies and Cascades, especially during hunting season. You want to talk about armed camps, we’ll show Buchanan more firepower than an ATF gun trafficking operation, and these guns stay right here in the United States.
Note to Washington Ceasefire: All these guns you don’t want us to have; we’ve already got them. The Bellevue-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and the Second Amendment Foundation (both of which just kicked your butt on state preemption, as this column noted) will make sure we keep them.
The other day, a story in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported huge business for Alliant Tech Systems, which owns Federal Cartridge.
For the last few years, commercial ammunition has been Alliant's fastest-growing business, fueled in part by Americans' increased concern over their safety and fears that stricter gun control laws could be ahead, company officials say…
…FBI background checks on gun buyers -- a key barometer of civilian firearm and ammunition sales -- have grown dramatically since 2008. So have federal excise tax collections on guns and ammo, up 45 percent from 2008 to 2009, according to the Treasury Department.
Background checks through the end of February rose 12 percent from last year, according to figures from the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
At this point, it might be prudent to ask why American citizens are stockpiling guns and ammunition. Universally, there appears to be widespread concern that if Barack Obama is re-elected to another term, gun rights in this country are in serious jeopardy. Obama could appoint possibly two or three more Supreme Court justices, and if they are anything like the last two he named to the high court, those public fears might be recognized.
To those who sneer that Obama has really done nothing to threaten gun rights in this country, one merely has to point a finger at Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor to end the conversation. The next time Obama opens up about an “unelected group of people who would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law,” he can be reminded that his two anti-gun appointees belong to that group and nobody elected them, either, and they seem inclined to overturn the Second Amendment.
And then one must look at the eyebrow-raising revelation the other day from ATK:
ATK announced that it is being awarded an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) agreement from the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (DHS, ICE) for .40 caliber ammunition. This contract features a base of 12 months, includes four option years, and will have a maximum volume of 450 million rounds.
ATK was the incumbent and won the contract with its HST bullet, which has proven itself in the field. The special hollow point effectively passes through a variety of barriers and holds its jacket in the toughest conditions. HST is engineered for 100-percent weight retention, limits collateral damage, and avoids over-penetration.
That’s one hell of a lot of ammunition, and the announcement certainly brought out some tinfoil hats. However, even more level heads looked at that ammo figure and wondered why DHS and ICE could possibly need that much ammunition.
Hey, maybe the ATF is sending some of it to Mexico.
Buchanan wraps up his column explaining that it is “our business” and not the United Nations’ business who owns guns, how many and what kind. This column would also suggest that it is none of our government’s business, either.
For many years, gun prohibitionists in this country have maintained otherwise; that it should be “the government’s business” how many guns there are in this country, and who owns them.
There’s an easy solution to this dilemma. If the Obama administration really wants to know how many gun owners there are in this country, go ahead and sign this global small arms treaty (which, of course, will never be ratified by the Senate if it comes anywhere near the Second Amendment), and come election day, you’ll see all of them
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