The United Nations vs. the Second Amendment:
Over at Opinio Juris, Kenneth Anderson has an interesting post about last week's gun control conference at the United Nations, and a New York Times puff piece thereon, written by C.J. Chivers.
After noting U.S. concerns about the U.N. becoming a venue attacks on American gun ownership, the Times explains:
The United Nations and advocates of gun control have said that such fears are unfounded, and that there is no effort to impose standards on nations with traditions of civilian ownership, or to restrict hunting. The programs, they said, apply largely to areas suffering from insurgencies or war.But Anderson was present at the beginning of the U.N.'s campaign against gun ownership:“States remain free to have their own national legislation,” said Daniel Prins, chief of the Conventional Arms Branch of the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. “This document does not try to regulate gun ownership in the whole world. This is an instrument that allows states to focus on regions in conflict and the weapons that illicitly get there.”
I recall sitting in meetings of landmines advocates talking about where things should go next; I was director of the Human Rights Watch Arms Division, with a mandate to address the transfer of weapons into conflicts where they would be used in the violation of the laws of war, and small arms were the main concern. I was astonished at how quickly the entire question morphed from concern about the flood of weapons into African civil wars into how to use international law to do an end run around supposedly permissive gun ownership regimes in the US.Despite protestations to the contrary, the U.N. remains quite interested in constricting lawful gun ownership. Consider, for example, the United Nations Disarmament Programme's publication, How to Guide: Small Arms and Light Weapons Legislation. The publication touts the importance of international "harmonisation" of gun laws. According to the United Nations:
I dropped any personal support for the movement when it became clear, a long time ago, that it is about controlling domestic weapons equally in the US (or, today, even more so) as in Somalia or Congo.
Citizens should only be allowed to own guns if they are given a government permit, and the permit should only be issued if there is a "good reason" for posssession or or "genuine need." In particular, permits to own guns for self defense should not be issued unless the applicant proves taht he is in immediate danger.In The Human Right of Self-Defense, 22 BYU Journal of Public Law 43 (2008), Paul Gallant, Joanne Eisen and I detail some of the U.N.'s activities against domestic gun ownership. These include:
The law require "safe storage", which means that firearms should be disassembled and the ammunition ammo stored separately.
There should be frequent renewal procedures to assure the owner's continued eligibility. A good example is provided by Australia, which for most gun owners (except farmers) requires membership in a sports club, and participation in a minimum number of shooting events annually.
A firearms license should be contingent on the consent of the person's spouse or former partner.
All firearms should be registered on a centralized computer system.
The home and vehicles of a gun owner should be subject to official inspection "at will."
Providing financial and planning support to the proponents of a gun confiscation referendum in Brazil.
Adopting a Special Rapporteur's report declaring that self-defense is not a right, but is a limited excuse for violating the rights of the criminal.
Declaring that insufficient domestic gun control is a violation of current human rights treaties. Under the U.N.'s standards, even the pre-Heller laws of the District of Columbia were so lax as to be international human rights violations, for allowed the possession and use of defensive rifles or shotguns, in business premises, against non-lethal felony attacks such as rape, mayhem, arson, and armed robbery.
Rebecca Peters' organization IANSA (International Action Network Against Small Arms) is the "the organization officially designated by the UN Department of Disarmament Affairs (DDA) to coordinate civil society involvement to the UN small arms process." The official UN Report against self-defense was written by an IANSA member, University of Minnesota Law Professor Barabara Frey.
According to Peters--the head of the organization which the U.N. says represents "civil society" on gun issues, all handguns should be banned, as should all rifles capable of firing 100 meters, as should the defensive ownership of any gun.
It was certainly a relief to find out that the U.N. has no interest in restricting the gun rights of Americans.
We must be on our toes. At any moment, the UN could suddenly decide to challenge it's main contributor and host country! I hates guns THAT MUCH!
Our veto power would mean nothing against the onslaught of angry resolutions from the General Assembly!
Indeed, the UN, is likely just waiting till it's Muslim allies weaken us enough before it strikes at us and Israel with it's Soros-funded armies.
IT hates guns THAT MUCH!
Though the other way reads pretty well. Sorta liberal pirate going there.
Presumably it can't be both an ineffectual debating society and an organization capable of preventing countries from doing things.
Ambassador to the UN? Well, I am super diplomatic, and I do like the tropics...
In all seriousness, can somebody sketch out the plausible story, step by step please, in which those coffee-clutching do-nothing bribe-taking bureaucrats are actually able to affect my ability to buy a glorious, pristine M24/47 Mauser for only $129.95 (which I just did by the way, receiving it in the U.S. mail no less).
Silly boy. They're going to take our guns away from us in exactly the same way as they over (and tax) the internet: they'll whine us to death.
As a constrictor snake kills its prey. It doesn't do the vise thing. Instead, it holds on, waiting for the prey to move, to exhale, to give it half an inch. And you never get that half inch back.
Sort of like the "ratchet", which somebody said was a better term for the process than "slippery slope".
A restriction here, a survey there. A liberal congress deciding that a Garand, being scary, is an assault rifle. Zillion percent tax on ammo in the state in which the ammo is made.
Take away the people's ability and willingness to defend themselves from authoritarian governments, and they're much easier to control and oppress.
Thus, the constant inculcation that guns are inherently "evil", the notion that self-defensive measures are morally equivalent to aggression, and the continual attempts to prevent people from possessing firearms.
There's an agenda behind the UN and the support it gets from American and Western liberals ... and it's a very dark one for all of us who prefer freedom, democracy, justice, and the pursuit of happiness.
As for the veto power, that assumes the administration wants to veto it. A Democratic administration would be very unlikely to veto any UN resolution that would infringe on gun rights.
Yeh - where Zimbabwe plus Sudan ( for one of so many examples ) outnumber the USA two to one in voting power. Great system.
It's challenged its main contributor on a good number of matters, both legitimate and less so.
As for our veto power, last I checked that only takes a single President's statement to overturn -- on a subject President's have been notoriously less than 50/50 on -- rather than bothering with anything more complicated or easily overturned.
Easy, they'll sign all the other governments into the world into a treaty which requires the destruction of all surplus arms and ammunition, rather than allowing them to be exported to countries such as the United States.
General Assembly resolutions are non-binding while the U.S. holds veto power on the Security Council (and is a permanent member). I think you're overreacting.
The United Nations passes a general resolution that all handguns are illegal unless in the hands of a state-sanctioned governmental force.
The US Supreme Court decides that the 'general international standards' of the world require that we also declare that all handguns are illegal, and when the Heller case comes up, they decide 9-0 that all handguns are illegal and that, no matter how ludicrous it is, the Second Amendment only has to do with state militias or something because of 'internaltional law.'
Yes, it is ludicrous. But all it takes is influence on the Supreme Court... and the many upcoming challenges that will soon be getting to the Supreme Court on this.
There is no point in wasting further money an effort on this low rent farce. Let them convene in Switzerland where the criminals can visit their money while performing their little farces.
Ummm... why?
"International Law", BTW, is some chimera that has been passed by no legislature or king but is somehow binding (at least morally) on all of humanity.
Who died and left the UN king?
The scenario for UN trumping gun rights is easy (pre-Heller), less so since then but still imaginable.
1) US (like Canada and some may other countries) passes a vague and sweeping "Human Rights" law (we all love human rights, right?).
2a) The Court takes this vague feel-good law and uses it as a blank check to legislate any and everything they want (once again, see Canada).
2b) The UN drills into the Left's head that gun rights are a violation of "Human Rights" (tm) and that no right to self-defense exists. (See main post).
3) The Court combines 2a &2b to outlaw the self-defense defense to battery/homicide and OKs gun control legislation (see the UK).
Or Option #2) replace the step (1) with some international treaty that limits sales, self-defense, or allows adjudication in an international court (see libel tourism)
Now post-Heller this is more difficult. Especially since all 9 Justices said the 2nd Amendment was an individual right. You have two options.
Option #1, not good) The 2nd Amendment isn't incorporated down to individual states. Outlaw gun ownership there.
Option #2, better) Go to a reasonable restriction test and all restrictions are reasonable. This is similar to the UK in which all Protestants have the right to own a gun, barring "reasonable regulation" (or something similar, I am not going to Google the term). How is the right to bear arms working for Protestants in England now a days? I got a knife handy.
I fail to see how this is even a mild concern - let alone worrisome enough so as to lead some posters to scream bloody murder for the U.S. to withdraw from the United Nations.
The right to own firearms is part of the right to self-defense (one right even Hobbes acknowledged could not be surrendered to Leviathan) in the same way that the right to free speech includes the right to own devices for the purpose of communication. The UN Disarmament Programme's position on firearms is just as morally repugnant as a UN programme advocating the limitation of Internet connections to those who can show "good reason" or "genuine need", and subjecting the residences of persons allowed to use the Internet to official inspection "at-will".
It doesn't matter that such rules could not be adopted in the US; the possibility that such advocacy might contribute to such restrictions anywhere in the world is sufficient to make undermining such advocacy the right thing to do. Withholding funding, in whole or part, is a perfectly peaceful means of expressing our displeasure and undermining the UN's ability to campaign against a fundamental human right, whether the right of free speech or the right to self-defense.
And I am not demanding that the UN act against the flawed beliefs of any of its member states as a condition of funding. I'm not demanding the UN to actively support human rights, but merely that it cease efforts, however ineffectual, to undermine them.
Nor am I advocating that the US withdraw from the UN. We've refused to pay our (full) assessments before, while retaining our membership. We should do so again, and every time in the future when the UN issues so much as a pamphlet against liberty.
So there is no way the U.N. can work to end gun rights in the U.S. without directly forbidding it? Are you serious?
Of course he's serious. He's seriously hoping we'll buy it, miss the obvious point.
O, now that I'm typing: while sarcasm is often not an argument, it can be. LXJenkins' 10.45 comment reflected the argument that it hardly makes sense to be upset every time the General Assembly disagrees with the US. That's going to happen in a majority vote system, get used to it. (I actually tend to think that Sarcastro's comments are quite funny as well, but maybe that's because I usually agree with him.)
Our veto power would certainly mean nothing if the next president supports the UN's anti-gun positions. cough*Obama*cough
[Sarcasm doesn't lend itself to making a new argument, but it does point out flaws in other people's arguments pretty well, I find]
"Whenever a free man is in chains we are threatened also. Whoever is fighting for liberty is defending America." —William Allen White
Additionally, although the GA has no veto power, the usual liberal suspects insist it has moral authority and any time we don't do what the GA says, there's something wrong with us. That has an influence on the malleable. Who vote.
Where does this sort of thing come from? Even if Hiss was a spy, the idea that he setup the UN in order to undermine the US so that it could be taken over by the Soviets... the SOVIETS?! Can we drop that tired line, please?
Look; I don't like most of the countries in the world either. Zimbabwe? Yeah, not a fan. But I would really rather have them at the table, talking--endlessly if need be--than splintered off on their own, lobbing hand grenades into our self-adulatory parade.
We can spend all day--indeed years--debating the merits of various UN proposals. Most proposals never become operational because people do just that. But the idea that a super-national negotiation table is somehow an ultra-secret global scheme to take away your grandpa's old Mauser, well, that's just too much to swallow.
I thought the whole Cobra Command fantasy died out upon entering adulthood.
LOL, the UN wants your ex-wife to be able to control whether or not you can legally possess a firearm.
The UN's concept of "rights" is just completely incompatible with the concept of rights enshrined in our Constitution. Our concept of rights is rational and grounded in natural law. The UN concept of rights is basically arbitrary, grounded in nothing other than the present trends of thought among socialists. It makes no distinction between positive and negative rights, nor between government actors and private actors, it just aims to secure everybody a "right" (which will be forced on you whether you want it or not) to live in a socialist regime.
I'm not saying we should drop out of the UN, it's nice to have a forum to resolve minor disputes and keep everybody talking to each other. But we should probably stop sending them money. I don't want to subsidize socialist advocacy with my tax dollars any more than I have to, and I've already got some fraction of it going to the Peace Studies department at the state university.
Uh...am I reading this correctly? The U.N. thinks letting people use lethal force to stop a rape is a human right violation? Of whom? The criminal who decided to rape somebody? It reminds me of hte Joe Horn case - people were railing against his actions and saying he violated criminals' rights.
W.T.F. What is all this concern with the rights of criminals in defensive situations? Why should you punish somebody who was stopping a lawless criminal from harming them or taking property?
Should people instead smile and bend over because, after all, the UN is ineffective (at this time)? So in your bizarro world, I can only mock and denigrate the UN for making speechs and "laws" aimed towards the destruction of what people view to be a fundamental right (regardless of whether you agree with them) when the UN is powerful enough to shut me up? You are better at sarcasm than people give you credit for!
But while they're talking to us, their people are dying. And a few hand grenades lobbed in our direction would surely result in the lobbers' quick demise, to the people's benefit.
The fact is that endless talk just produces endless excuses for endless inaction. If we truly believe in liberty as a natural right of all people, we ought to do better than that.
Whenever someone disagrees with me, my policy is to give them a quick punch in the face rather than waiting for them to decide to escalate the situation and then learn kung-fu.
1) The Constiutution is only concerned with criminal's rights when the government acts. That seems the sensible place to draw the line in most instances. It is one thing to say the government cannot summarily execute somebody. It is quite another to say we as a society deem it wrong (either morally or economically) to punish somebody for killing somebody to prevent imminent bodily harm or serious property theft. That's different than "condoning" in my view. It's just a defense to being punished.
2) You think deadly self-defense is only justified when death is threatened? Really? Not even kidnapping, rape, serious maiming?
3) If we're totally serious about this anyway, the death of the types of people who steal huge amounts of property, or who rape or commit armed robbery, is a good thing for society. Not denying that from a personal standpoint I wouldn't want to engage in that, but making criminal activity really really risky seems like a good idea.
Taking your example, we aren't punching some poor innocent guy for making innocuous statements. Instead, the U.N. is making menacing acts. Thus, we aren't punching the U.N. because they may be a threat someday, but because we believe they are engaged in (albeit slow) punch in our direction. You obviously don't think we are reasonable. Gold star fo you, if you do. Fortunately, you aren't the only one in the jury box.
There are several cases going back to the early 19th Century which suggest it is the other way around.
A couple of "snippets", FWIW:
In Geoffroy v. Riggs (133 U.S. 258, 1890) the Court stated:
"It would not be contended that it (the treaty power) extends so far as to authorize what the Constitution forbids, or a change in the character of the Government or in that of one of the States, or a cession of any portion of the territory of the latter, without its consent."
In Reid v. Covert (354 U.S. 1, 1957) the Court stated:
"[No] agreement with a foreign nation can confer power on the Congress, or on any other branch of Government, which is free from the restraints of the Constitution.
"[There] is nothing in [the supremacy clause] which intimates that treaties and laws enacted pursuant to them do not have to comply with the provisions of the Constitution. Nor is there anything in the debates which accompanied the drafting and ratification of the Constitution which even suggests such a result.
"It would be manifestly contrary to the objectives of those who created the Constitution, as well as those who were responsible for the Bill of Rights – let alone alien to our entire constitutional history and tradition – to construe Article VI as permitting the United States to exercise power under an international agreement without observing constitutional prohibitions. In effect, such construction would permit amendment of that document in a manner not sanctioned by Article V. The prohibitions of the Constitution were designed to apply to all branches of the National Government and they cannot be nullified by the Executive or by the Executive and the Senate combined….”
Since the US Constitution apparently means whatever five justices on the Supreme Court says it means, I don't take much comfort in this fact.
1. Allowing someone to shoot some guy jimmying the lock on their car is totally not condoning vigilante justice! I can see only good consequences from such a policy!
2. See, those three crimes all carry a reasonable apprehension of death. That hardly counts!
3. If people aren't serving society then to hell with them! The needs of the collective outweigh the needs of a few troublemakers. Intrinsic vale to human life? Not if you run afoul of the law!
I also love the image of beating up some guy who is slowly trying to punch you! So majestic and American!
An agency/convention of the UN will produce a Resolution which will have much binding power in any nation which takes rule of law seriously, while doing little about the internal affairs of any nation that doesn't mind saying one thing and doing another. Said Resolution will result in significant upheaval inside the social/legal structures of the Unites States of America, and unknown (possibly nonexistant) changes in the legal/social structures of countries from Albania to Zimbabwe.
And it smacks of intellectual elites within the U.S. and Europe telling the United States that we are a bunch of backwards rednecks who need to be saved from ourselves, while at the same time doing little about real troubles in places like Zimbabwe, Sudan, etc.
Come to think of it, that almost describes the UN conferences on Racism, as well as the UN Human Rights Commission...
Re your point 2: I would have to think about that, I'm not sure. But what is definitely not OK, is using deadly force to stop someone running off with your TV, or using deadly force when you have the option of safe, I repeat: safe, retreat.
Re 1: Mine was first and foremost a moral point, but legally of course the government acts when it enacts (!) a law. And even though such a concern should not rise to the level of an actionable right, lawmakers should consider the effect of their laws on all Americans, not just the law-abiding ones. Self-defence trumps the interest of the attacker, but that does not mean that the legislature is acting morally correctly when it removes reasonable limits on self-defence. To see how this applies to the present problem, give me a moment to compare the US to my country, the Netherlands:
- In the US, there are roughly as many fire arms as there are people, and that is ignoring the weapons owned by the military. Over here, gun ownership stands as sth. like 2 %.
- In the US, the number of homicides stands at sth. like 17.000 per year, or 7 times higher than the 200 per year we have here, when correcting for population size.
- In the US, trying to "take the guns" hurts the law-abiding citizens first, without a snowball's chance in hell of making it more difficult for criminals to get their hands on guns. From a practical point of view, that means that going after the guns in any widespread fashion is a bad idea, quite apart from the constitutional and political-philosophical considerations.
- Q: Does this mean that Dutch lawmakers should allow Dutch citizens easier access to fire arms, as part of their inherent right of self-defence? My answer would be that, firstly, that would probably make things worse, and secondly, an increase in cases of deadly self-defence could very well outweigh any further reduction in the homicide rate.
martinned,Well, that's fine as an overall principle, provided it doesn't in practice descend into second-guessing, at leisure and in a comfortable safe environment, every single action of the law-abiding victim who was forced into making a split-second decision in a highly dangerous environment by the criminal decedent. Polities that do that hardly qualify as "civilized" in my book, as they undermine the very foundation of their existence--the willing buy-in of the average citizen.
There is no doubt that the UN system is a magnificent bureaucracy that runs on stagnation, over analysis, and conferences on conferences. There is plenty of work to be done, and most anyone you meet at the UN will (at least privately) admit it. But that doesn't mean that the UN is the reason we haven't fixed Zimbabwe. I find it incredibly unlikely that, if there were no UN, the situation in Zimbabwe would be any different--except that maybe it would be someone's colony (which, sadly, would probably be better for a lot of the citizens). What the UN does is, it keeps the issue on the table; it stays on the agenda, and even if nothing ever gets done, at least there are talking points and potential. Sometimes things actually get fixed.
Karrde:
It is axiomatic that the rule of law will be most respected in those countries that respect the rule of law. I fail to see the problem with fixing our own faults, even while other countries still have theirs. Maybe we'll get lucky with some "trickle down" moralism.
The irony in the post is incredible. Let me get this straight - it's elitist for the rest of the world to have an opinion contrary to a section of the American population - yet it is somehow not elitist for those Americans to discount the views of the rest of the world (all the while doing nothing about real troubles in places like Zimbabwe, etc.)?
I don't take great issue with most of your policy ideas. But your use of Kant is absurd. Kant was a great metaphysicist and philosopher, but a terrible ethicist. His principle axiom for deducing the Categorical Imperative (of which the humanity formula is one instantiation) is laughably misconceived- that the only thing good in and of itself is a good will. The very exmples he uses to reject other "fundamental goods" (e.g. - he rejects intelligence b/c intelligence can be used for harm) can be used to reject "good will" as an intrinsic good - a really good-willed baffoon is just as damaging. Kant was just a utilitarian in disguise, in my view.
We as citizens should move beyond using ethical "theories" in place of substantive policy discussions. If society would be better off by having an open-season policy on people committing crimes against innocent citizens, then great as far as I'm concerned. I personally do not think property is worth killing over, but if somebody else wants to make that decision let them.
How about a five millennium run?
Well, what'd you think?
I believe you will find that the entire purpose of the UN is produce an endless debating society, where decisions are made through the most boring and long-winded processes known to man. Because we've tried ad hoc coalitions of the willing, and they aren't always what you're imagining.
Why is it that the same folk who endorse a domestic separation of powers, with the pointless squabbles and bureaucratic entanglements that it produces, are so frequently opposed to anything like it on an international scale? Isn't sand-in-the-gears the entire point?
@Srsly: By and large, I'm all for utilitarianism, especially when it comes to government policy decisions. But don't you think there should be some deontological "red lines"? Things we simply do not do, no matter how much it improves the total welfare? One of the problems with most forms of utilitarianism is that tends to suggest that it is OK to sacrifice the few to help the many, eg. in extremis to kill a few murderers so as to deter murders in society at large. This kind of "taking one for the team" recommendation would certainly not be in line with most people's sense of right and wrong, which leads me to suggest that utilitarianism needs some exogenous red lines. (You don't have to get them from Kant, if you don't want to.)
No, I don't think we need some deontological red line. Just because my "intuition" tells me it's a good idea does not make it so. Actually breaking down the semantics of such a proposal tells me why: the corollary to putting a red deontological line is "There exists some possible world where you are compelled to do action X rather than Y and action Y is the optimal action for reducing overall suffering." That to me is ludicrous.
But I don't think a priori arguments are possible here - you either "believe" in deontological red lines or you don't. But I do think many people's beliefs are based on unquestioned intuitions.
Even if I did believe in such bright lines, I don't think that "the government choosing not to punish citizens who defend their property of over $x thousand dollar ammount" would be where I'd draw that line. Maybe at "not torturing" or something, but not there.
Little late to this party....
Last I checked, 13% of rape victims attempted suicide; some rape victims will contract incurable or deadly STDs; arson carries with it the very real possibility of inadvertent death (whether the fire spreads, or kills someone not known to be on the premises, or endangers firefighters as they try to control it); and, when a victim is in the home, there is a reasonable likelihood that armed robbers will harm the victim. (EV had a thread about this a few months ago, IIRC. Off the top of my head, 30% of people who are at home during an armed robbery are harmed? Sound right?) The United States also recognises "attempt to do serious bodily injury" murder, in which someone who merely (ha) attempts to inflict severe harm on a person accidentally kills the victim.
If we were psychic, we could determine when arson, mayhem, armed robbery, or rape would turn deadly. (We could also determine if the guy breaking into our homes was, in fact, armed, or is a more benign type of robber, there only to steal but not to harm any victims.) As we cannot perfectly predict the intentions of our aggressors, however, it is senseless to demand that we presume their good intentions and good outcomes of their actions (as with arson or mayhem).
On a related note, the United Nations seems to be woefully ignorant of history. Dictators - and all those who would oppress people - start by disarming them.
If I can throw in my 2 cents: it seems to me that red lines are useful and perhaps necessary, but they ought to be established in the same way as all other policy, not by deference to some a priori sentiment. So we may have a rule that says "never torture: EVER!" but only because we determined that the benefits of having a solid, unambiguous anti-torture regime outweigh the benefits of sometimes getting good, "actionable" information. In our modern, totem-free world, I really don't see any alternative.
You can have your cake and eat it too! (Huh?)
Look at the article of the US Constitution that enables the amendment process. Amendments take precedence over articles of the constitution. The BoR thus trumps the article concerning treaty law.
Absolutely; no problem with that from a theoretical standpoint.
I want to make sure I understand you (and Kant) correctly.
I come home one evening and find a burglar in my living room. He sees me in the entry and waves a tire iron at me. I should (1) turn and run out my own front door and not (2) blow his head off.
Is that correct?
You write that like it would be a bad result.
I don't know about Dutch murderers, but US murderers are generally folk who have a long history of violence.
If you want society to protect them, it should figure out how to do so without allowing them to prey on others. If it fails to do that ....
A pretense of concern has nothing to do with being concerned; au contraire.
@Mark Rockwell: That makes sense, some higher-level rule utilitarianism. I could go with that.
@Srsly: I'm not sure I understand your objection. As always, the kicker in this kind of approach is in the notion of "overall suffering". How does that translate into an actual prescription for Jack Bauer? And yes, we can talk about the specific red lines. The ban on torture seems controversial enough these days.
@Andy Freeman: I'll leave your comment for Sarcastro to respond to, if he wishes.
Deadly self defense, unlike the State's inefficient "Death Penalty" doesn't suffer from unnecessary delays caused by defense attorneys and laws. And I'm pretty sure I read somewhere only "bad folk" get killed in self defense.
In fact, why not just get rid of the state's criminal process altogether, and just arm everyone? It would certainly keep "bad folk" from preying on others...
Not being Dutch myself, having no close contacts nor any recent living experience in the country, I have absolutely no opinion on whether the murder rate would affected by liberalized gun control laws.
Rather, it's your certainty that it would go up that interests me. The thought of all those murderous citizens of the Netherlands, stymied only by the lack of a handy firearm...
Mark R.,
So you actually think the absence of major worldwide warfare since 1945 is the result of the UN rather than, oh, say, NATO?
I think some distinctions are needed here--first of all, between killing as retribution for theft versus killing in the process of defending property. And second, between the rights of the accused, or even rights of convicted criminals, which count primarily against government officials, versus some putative right of a criminal that empowers him against the victim in the very act of committing the crime.
If someone enters my house while I'm home and sets about robbing my property, he sets up a confrontation in which I have every right to stop the robbery, and I don't have to take chances that the intruder might have a concealed weapon or be able to kill me barehanded. The judgment of what force I need to apply at that point is mine. It is absurd to suppose that the robber in the process of robbery in my home has some right to expect me to retreat or stand idly by or endanger myself by applying possibly inadequate force.
How droll...
Really to be a good Leftist you have to be good at cognitive dissidence.
I fall back to Evan Sayet's premise that "to eliminate discrimination, the modern Liberal has opted to become utterly indiscriminate". That they view rational thought as an evil. That setting two things beside each other and selecting one it discrimination, and discrimination is wrong.
A devastatingly witty response, if self-defense is a form of punishment. Unfortunately, it is not.
Locke on death as a punishment for murder and on resistance with deadly force:
They definitely describe all forms of "Self-Defense" as an assault on the Human Rights of innocent criminals. Innocent Criminal is then specifically defined to pertain to anyone holding an office of Authority, even if that office is "Minister of Rape" (as in the Cabinet of Sudam Hussein), an assault on whom is defined as a "Heinous Crime."
Personally, I see nothing wrong with Criminals killing Criminals, you certainly can't define that as "Murder." But, most people, especially leftists, see no distinction between the words, "Kill" or "Murder," even though they are polar opposites.
"Murder" is the act of taking the life of something or someone that does not deserve to die, and, whose death is a disservice to Family, Community, State or Nation.
To "Kill" is the act of ending the life of something or someone that 'needs' (or, must) be stripped of life for the good of self or others, for the good of Community, State or Nation (necessarily) serving the good of all.
In the history of the world, not a single Law has prevented a determined Criminal from committing a Crime with whatever weapon available, in that age, or, at that time.
Any Law passed "...with a view to control Crime," or, "...to prevent Crime" is based on a False Premise, a non-sequiter resulting in Tyranny, and, should be declared "unconstitutional," even if (and when) it is an article of, or amendment to, a Constitution.
I guess I am no leftist, as I don't believe (a), but completely believe (b), at least with respect to the idea that the UN somehow has the power to affect my RKBA in the U.S.
All the scenarios I've seen so far require political majorities in the U.S., presumably sufficient to render the various veto powers irrelevant, to somehow give effect to evil UN doings -- but of course, if those veto-defying political majorities existed, they could drive anti RKBA policies irrespective of the UN.
I certainly agree with that. I just don't see any reason for paranoia to be part of the process.
Just because there is (justifiable) overlap between RKBA supporters and UN despisers doesn't mean the two issues are linked in any material way.
This is among the most absurd things I have ever read. Because crime still continues, does not mean that laws have not stopped a criminal from commiting a crime. They simply have not stoppped the criminal who succeeded. If a law were to make some weapon more difficult to obtain, then it would necessarily deter a criminal from commiting a crime that required the weapon. It's pretty clear that laws have thusfar prevented determined folks from using nuclear devices for terrorist crime....
There's really no "if" about it. The book Venona, by J. Hanes and H. Klehr (1999, Yale University Press, New Haven and London) thoroughly documents the fact. (Hiss' code name used by his controllers, if you're curious, was "Ales.")
Venona recounts that Hiss was a State department official who obligingly sent copies of just about everything that came across his desk to the GRU (Soviet Military Intelligence). And he was by no means the only individual in the American government who did so. Hanes and Klehr cover the entire story.
Back in 1950, Senator Joe McCarthy was evidently tipped off by someone to the ongoing espionage, and made quite an issue about it. But he could produce no solid evidence. Given his less-than-reputable techniques of argument, a majority of the country would not take him seriously. (Nor, I regret to say, did I, at the time. Many years later I had occasion to speak to a person who confirmed certain of the Venona revelations of which that person was personally aware. It was sobering.)
Do you actually believe that by changing the KGB's initials to the FSB, they stopped working to undermine the West? Do you actually believe that they gave up the idea of World Communism? Do you think they don't hate us for depriving them of their Eastern European empire, and reducing the Soviet empire from a population of 330 million, to today's 140 million?
The Soviet fall was not like the end of the Third Reich or Imperial Japan, which ended in unconditional surrender. No one cut the head off of the Soviet snake. For them it was only a case of "two steps forward, one step back."
A KGB officer who defected to the West was hired by one of the top two U.S. defense contractors, where I worked in the early '90's, to explain to employees how Soviet intelligence operations worked. I attended one of his lectures [which were primarily about how defense company secrets were gathered by Soviet agents; the #1 method was to use janitors to go through the engineers' trash at night]. This former KGB officer was deemed credible by a Fortune 100 company; maybe it would be worthwhile to listen to a short interview with him here: [click]
The people who attended his lecture in the early 1990's were optimistic that we had won the Cold War, and that democracy would spread across the earth and good will would prevail. Listen to this KGB agent in the link above, then decide if we were a bit too optimistic and naive.
And:Do you like that UN definition of "former partner"? Think that might include any former boyfriend, girlfriend, or college roommate?
As Sebastian already indicated, the UN is paying countries to destroy their surplus ammunition &arms rather than sell them to collectors in the USA. We used to receive supplies of surplus ammo from South Africa, but now they are getting paid more to destroy it. Australian FAL L1A1 parts were being imported into the US, but now they're destroying them at the behest of the UN.
Perhaps in the future, there will be treaties other countries will recognize that will not allow them to export firearms for civilian use, only military &law enforcement. No, they can't stop our domestic production, but they will make it a more expensive hobby.
The subject is: Handheld Weapons suitable for self defense, not Nuclear Weapons or ICBM's. If these are included, it becomes an issue of availability and cost. However, you can't deny that both would be usefull to a Militia fighting a war with a Super-power, but, a little over the top for the local Burglar.
It's not really kosher to use 'over-the-top' comparisons when discussing Murderers or Burglars, with limited resources.
You also ignore the descriptive phrase, "determined Criminal," which takes it out of the league of someone thinking about stealing a Hot Dog because he's hungry, and, having second thoughts. The description would apply to those who've chosen or drifted into a life of Crime, and, really enjoy committing crimes, or, a first time criminal doing it for a thrill to impress his "gangsta" buddies, thereby accruing status in a gang.
No law has or ever will prevent determined criminals from breaking Laws. To them, in their culture, it's a badge of courage, an act of defiance, in extreme cases a symptom of the "I Syndrome" (the only known commonality between Assassins and Mass or Serial Killers - I, me, my, mine...I am God, the Target exists only as a target, or, for my pleasure. "The God Syndrome," is another name).
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