BLUF:
\nIt\u2019s time for the U.S. to quit the Programme of Action. And while we\u2019re at it, we should quit the U.N. ammo group and make it clear that, no matter what the U.N. does about bullets, we won\u2019t try to apply its foolish ideas here.<\/p>\n
UN Gun Control Program Runs Amok Again<\/a><\/p>\n More than two decades ago, the United Nations created a program to curb the trafficking of small arms. It\u2019s done nothing but fire blanks. So now, the U.N. wants to control bullets.<\/p>\n In 2001, the United Nations started the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects. Its next meeting will be held in New York from June 27 to July 1.<\/p>\n The Programme isn\u2019t a treaty. It\u2019s a political gathering that\u2019s meant to encourage voluntary cooperation. It meets every other year to produce an outcome document that\u2019s politically (but not legally) binding.<\/p>\n It\u2019s supposed to work by unanimous consent.<\/p>\n Want to keep up with the 24\/7 news cycle? Want to know the most important stories of the day for conservatives? Need news you can trust? Subscribe to The Daily Signal\u2019s email newsletter.\u00a0Learn more >><\/a><\/p>\n The Programme\u00a0has achieved very little, if anything<\/a>. That\u2019s not just my view. The U.N. secretary-general said so in 2008. New Zealand said so in 2012. Its supporters said it was \u201cfiring blanks\u201d in 2014. In 2018, the Red Cross said that governments in the Programme talk a lot, but do nothing.<\/p>\n In practice, that suits most of the U.N. fine: All the nations get credit for participating in the Programme while actually doing nothing, while the Programme focuses on peripheral issues, such as 3D-printed guns.<\/p>\n This year, the rumor is that the Programme\u2019s president wants it to focus on banning toy guns. (No more water pistols for your kids, says the U.N.)<\/p>\n If the nations in the Programme genuinely wanted to help control the illicit trade in small arms, it could in theory be modestly useful.<\/p>\n For example, it could seek to eliminate the \u201cChinese exemption,\u201d under which Beijing is exempt from the requirement to put serial numbers on its firearms, which makes\u00a0Chinese guns<\/a>\u00a0difficult to trace.<\/p>\n But instead, the Programme focuses on irrelevant distractions\u2014and on breaking its own promises.<\/p>\n In 2018, the Programme broke its rule of unanimity to approve an outcome document that added ammo over U.S. protests. The Programme wasn\u2019t supposed to include ammunition. And adding it serves no useful purpose.<\/p>\n The idea of putting numbers on, and trying to trace, individual rounds of ammunition is nonsensical. The resulting database would have trillions of entries.<\/p>\n Most of the Programme\u2019s member nations can\u2019t and don\u2019t even meet their existing commitments. But that didn\u2019t stop the United Nations from adding ammo.<\/p>\n The U.S. does most of the work of running traces on firearms, providing expertise, and giving aid to upgrade foreign recordkeeping through the Programme.<\/p>\n But if the U.S. is going to do most of the work and simultaneously going to have the Programme\u2019s rules broken against it, there\u2019s no reason for us to continue to participate in it.<\/p>\n There are now more good reasons than ever to quit. When the Programme voted to include ammo in 2018, it lined itself up with a U.N. working group. That group\u2019s\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0came out late last year, and it\u2019s a bureaucrat\u2019s fantasy.<\/p>\n It calls for the negotiation of \u201ca set of political commitments\u201d to \u201cconcentrate on through-life ammunition management.\u201d In other words, an entirely new Programme of Action, focused just on ammo.<\/p>\n \u201cThrough-life\u201d ammo management may sound innocuous, but isn\u2019t. Here\u2019s what it means, in the U.N.\u2019s own words:<\/p>\n States would reduce security risks by encouraging ammunition producers, where feasible, practicable and consistent with national legislation, to maintain effective accounting and record-keeping systems that permit the retrieval (by serial, batch, or lot number) of detailed sales and transfer records. Ideally, such records should be digital, easily retrievable, and held for as long as feasible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Translation: The U.N. wants manufacturers of ammo to number their bullets. Then the U.N. wants to track where and to whom every bullet in the world is sold or sent. The U.N. also wants to track who sells to whom. And it wants all those records digitized, easily accessed, and kept forever.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Does the mention of \u201cconsistent with national legislation\u201d give the U.S. an out? Not really, because the goal of the Programme is to commit nations to changing their laws\u2014to get them to invent new crimes.<\/p>\n And if the U.S. changed its laws, then what the Programme wants would suddenly be \u201cconsistent with national legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n The U.N.\u2019s plan would be a massive invasion of privacy. It would set the stage for governments to surveil gun owners. It would result in the criminalization of everything related to the sale or transfer of ammo.<\/p>\n And it would never work.<\/p>\n In theory, the Programme of Action is supposed to focus on the illicit arms trade. But as the U.S. has repeatedly pointed out, many nations don\u2019t even live up to their commitment to put serial numbers on imported firearms so they can be traced.<\/p>\n So, now all those nations are going to number bullets?<\/p>\n The defenders of this idea say that bullets make guns work. But it\u2019s just as true that guns make bullets work. And it\u2019s a lot easier to trace guns than bullets.<\/p>\n The U.S. participated in the U.N. group that developed this foolish report. But we have no idea what it said inside the group. All we know is that the U.N. is at it again\u2014presumably, with U.S. backing.<\/p>\n This is what we get for taking the U.N. seriously when it comes to\u00a0guns<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Programme of Action doesn\u2019t work. Everyone concedes that it doesn\u2019t work, and there\u2019s no likelihood that it ever will work. The U.S.\u2019 participation simply gives it a credibility it doesn\u2019t deserve.<\/p>\n If the Programme were harmless, that might not be so bad. But it has lots of silly ideas of its own, and it\u2019s a barrier to useful action\u2014like getting numbers on Chinese guns.<\/p>\n Now, it\u2019s adding fuel to the U.N.\u2019s desire to number bullets.<\/p>\n It\u2019s time for the U.S. to quit the Programme of Action. And while we\u2019re at it, we should quit the U.N. ammo group and make it clear that, no matter what the U.N. does about bullets, we won\u2019t try to apply its foolish ideas here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BLUF: It\u2019s time for the U.S. to quit the Programme of Action. And while we\u2019re at it, we should quit the U.N. ammo group and make it clear that, no matter what the U.N. does about bullets, we won\u2019t try to apply its foolish ideas here. UN Gun Control Program Runs Amok Again More than … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,9,50,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial-o-the-day","category-enemies-foreign-domestic","category-goobermint","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81047"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81049,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81047\/revisions\/81049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}