The UN’s Global Gun Control Activities Progress Incrementally
August 1, 2005

by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor

Action at the United Nations (UN) is not usually swift and decisive. In the world of international diplomacy, keeping your eye on an agenda item is like watching paint dry. The ambassadors and their governments are in no hurry. They build slowly.

And so it is with the international gun control program.

After many meetings in many places and much discussion, a UN protocol labeled the “Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects” was adopted in 2001.

That was the official beginning, wrapped in the justification of protecting the people of the world from crime, human rights violations, internal and external conflicts and even poverty. Since then there have been meetings held on every continent, some at regional levels, but always with the same goal in mind.

As reported in previous issues of Gun Week and in other firearms publications, while the ambassadors talk about the illicit trade in firearms and serializing all firearms that are manufactured, the real target is civilian possession of guns.

Bolton’s 2001 Remarks
Several international studies have been cited to justify the positions taken by various governments. The US has been a participant at all UN meetings on the issue and is sympathetic to the need for a system to control illicit traffic in arms. However, in 2001, when the “Programme” was first adopted, John Bolton, then President Bush’s Undersecretary of State for Disarmament, spelled out a clear US position.

The US would not agree to any international scheme that ran counter to the Second Amendment or denied Americans their right to keep and bear arms, and the US would not accept a ban on international shipments of arms to nations in which the citizens were fighting against tyrannical governments. This may be one of the main reasons that Democrat senators like Schumer, Feinstein and Kennedy have been blocking Bush’s nomination of Bolton as US ambassador to the UN.

However, no matter what the US position in 2001, it is always subject to change with other administrations, like the one John Kerry tried to sell the American public in 2004. The gun control advocates at the UN know that administrations change, that building a new world order takes time, so they continue to creep toward their goal.

A major meeting on the global gun control “Programme” was held in New York City July 11-15. It was officially the Second Biennial Meeting of States to review progress on the “Programme of Action on Small Arms.”

The meeting was chaired by Pasi Patokallio, Finland’s ambassador to the UN, who used data on the issue from the latest study conducted by the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Switzerland to claim that small arms are “the real weapons of mass destruction.”

The study claimed that small arms fire kills as many as three times more people than previously thought, and that deaths from small arms, such as pistols, rifles, machineguns, mortars and hand-held rocket launchers, likely totaled 80,000 to 108,000 for 2003.

Needless to say, the report recommended that an international system be set up to trace weapons sales and keep tabs on government arsenals that are sometimes pilfered by rebels and rarely retrieved even after hostilities cease.

The report was just one pitch for more controls.

Representatives for the European Union, China, Canada and other countries were in attendance at the July Biennial Meeting, pitching for more regulation of small arms.

China’s deputy UN ambassador Zhang Yishan called on all countries to crack down on the illegal trade in small arms.

He outlined China’s measures and achievements in controlling the sale of small arms, saying international and regional cooperation is needed to crack down on the illegal small arms trade.

Zhang said the international community needs to assist developing countries in controlling small arms and eliminate the sources of trade.

Just how incremental is the global gun control process at the UN? Listen to what Patokallio told the meeting;

“Looking a bit further ahead, beyond the 2006 review conference, there is a strong wish, certainly on the part of the European Union (EU) and Canada, to begin negotiations for another international instrument, this time to regulate arms brokering. In the EU view, this instrument, too, should be legally binding,” Patokallio noted.

The National Post in Canada reported on July 12 that gunowners in that country reacted with alarm as government officials from Ottawa told the opening day of a United Nations gun-control conference that more regulation over civilian possession of firearms should be a global priority.

“This will lead to more controls for legitimate gunowners in Canada,” said Tony Bernardo, who attended the conference on behalf of the Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association, which has 12,000 members.

“To regulate the illicit brokers, you first have to regulate the legal ones, and the way these guys do it, we’re afraid it will mean lumping in a whole bunch of civilian sporting guns with the military material,” he said on the conference’s sidelines.

Canadian opponents of Ottawa’s gun-control policies say the government has long pushed for increasing international controls to justify the tightening of domestic regulations that, they argue, have been more effective at putting the squeeze on hunters and enthusiasts of other gun sports than on criminals.

“From Canada’s perspective . . . serious attention should be given to the regulation of civilian possession of small arms, particularly military-style weapons,” Tim Martin, head of Canada’s UN delegation, said in his address.

Civilians
“Civilian possession of small arms continues to pose a considerable risk to the safety of people in regions where appropriate laws regulating civilian possession do not exist or law enforcement measures are inadequate.”

They keep targeting civilian possession of small arms.

However, The National Post said that Canadian government officials denied the statement signaled imminent tougher regulation in Canada, where controls include registration.

“The emphasis is on ‘where appropriate law does not exist,’ ” said one. “There would not be a whole lot of new laws because those in Canada are not inadequate.”

According to The Post, conservative firearms critic Garry Breitkreuz, a member of Parliament from Alberta, charged in June that the Liberal government has pushed through its domestic gun-control agenda by using “nameless bureaucrats” to negotiate tough measures on the world stage, then saying Canada must comply.

As the meeting began on July 11, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan congratulated the international community on its willingness to work together on combating “illicit trading of small arms and light weapons.” He also called for speedy additional efforts to negotiate a new, legally binding instrument against illicit arms dealing in preparation for the largest UN summit ever, scheduled for September.
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