>  OBAMA POSITIONING FOR BACK DOOR GUN CONTROL

> By Chuck Baldwin
> April 24, 2009
> NewsWithViews.com

> On his recent trip to Central America, President Barack Obama did more
> than cozy up to Marxist dictators; he also signed onto an
> international treaty that could, in effect, be used as backdoor gun
> control. It appears that Obama wants to use international treaties to
> do what congressional legislation is not able to do: further restrict
> the right of the American people to keep and bear arms.

> Obama is using the oft-disproved contention that "90% of the guns
> recovered in Mexico come from the United States" as the stated basis
> of his support for the international treaty he is promoting. The
> treaty is formally known as the Inter-American Convention Against the
> Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition,
> Explosives and Other Related Materials (CIFTA) treaty. The Bill
> Clinton administration signed the treaty back in 1997, but the U.S.
> Senate has never ratified the treaty. Obama intends to change that.

> To date, 33 nations in the western hemisphere have signed the treaty.
> The U.S. is one of four nations that have yet to ratify it. According
> to one senior Obama administration official, passing the treaty is a
> "high priority" for the President.

> If ratified, the treaty would require the United States to adopt
> "strict licensing requirements, mark firearms when they are made and
> imported to make them easier to trace, and establish a process for
> sharing information between national law enforcement agencies
> investigating [gun] smuggling."

> Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee
> promises to "work for its [the CIFTA treaty's] approval by the
> Senate."

> Should the Senate ratify CIFTA, Americans who reload ammunition would
> be required to get a license from the government, and factory guns and
> ammunition would be priced almost out of existence due to governmental
> requirements to "mark" each one manufactured. Even the simple act of
> adding an after-market piece of equipment to a firearm, such as a
> scope or bipod, or reassembling a gun after cleaning it could fall
> into the category of "illicit manufacturing" of firearms and require
> government license and oversight.

> In addition, CIFTA would authorize the U.S. federal government (and
> open the door to international entities) to supervise and regulate
> virtually the entire American firearms industry. Making matters worse
> is the fact that, as a treaty, this Act does not have to be passed by
> both houses of Congress, nor is it subject to judicial oversight. All
> Obama needs to do in order to enact this unconstitutional and
> egregious form of gun control is convince a Democratic-controlled
> Senate to pass it.

> Obviously, the United Nations, from its very inception, has been one
> of the world's most ardent gun control proponents. As anyone who has
> ever driven by the U.N. building in New York City knows, a huge statue
> of an American-made revolver with its barrel twisted in the shape of a
> pretzel greets every visitor. The CIFTA treaty is one of the U.N.'s
> pet projects in order to achieve this long-held ambition.

> Of course, Obama is a longtime liberal radical when it comes to the
> Second Amendment. As a senator, he voted against the Second Amendment
> at every opportunity. He has never seen a piece of gun control
> legislation that he did not support. And as I have said before in this
> column, gun control is high on the list of priorities for the newly
> elected President Barack Obama.

> For Obama to intimate that 90% of the firearms used by Mexican drug
> cartels come from the United States reveals either a truly dishonest
> and deceptive mind or a totally misinformed and naïve one. Many
> studies have thoroughly debunked the 90% myth, including one by
> William La Jeunesse and Maxim Lott in a recent Fox News report.
> According to these researchers, the real number is closer to 17%.

> According to La Jeunesse and Lott, Mexican drug cartels, which control
> billions of dollars, obtain the overwhelming majority of their guns
> from the Black Market, Russian crime syndicates, South America, China,
> Guatemala, and even from the Mexican army.

> In fact, Mexico is a virtual arms bazaar: AK-47s from China;
> fragmentation grenades from South Korea; shoulder-fired rocket
> launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc dealers; assault
> weapons from China; and explosives from Korea--just to name a few
> sources.

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> In addition, according to Mexican Congressman Robert Badillo, more
> than 150,000 Mexican soldiers have deserted in just the last six
> years. The vast majority of them took their weapons with them,
> including the standard issue M-16 assault rifle made in Belgium.

> And please do not forget that corruption within the Mexican government
> is rampant. Many news sources have covered stories of how drug cartels
> bribe Mexican officials. An article in the New York Times last year
> reported, "One of Mexico's most notorious drug cartels made huge cash
> payments to officials in the Mexican attorney general's office in
> exchange for confidential information on anti-drug operations . . .
> the cartel might have had an informant inside the American embassy."

> The Mexican drug cartels control a multi-billion dollar enterprise
> that has more than enough resources to obtain planeloads of weapons
> from all over the world. For Obama to assert that 90% of the Mexican
> drug cartels' firearms come from the United States is a bald-faced
> lie! Again, either Obama is stupid and naïve or he is deliberately
> lying to the American people in order to "sell" the CIFTA treaty to
> the U.S. Senate. I think we all know that Mr. Obama is anything but
> stupid and naïve.

> Read more about the CIFTA treaty here.

> In addition to the CIFTA treaty, liberal Chicago Democrat Congressman
> Bobby Rush has introduced H.R. 45 in the House of Representatives.
> This bill is anything but subtle. It is an in-your-face gun control
> bill that would make "Mr. Gun Control," the late Senator Howard
> Metzenbaum, shout Hallelujah.

> H.R. 45 would require a federal license for all handguns and
> semiautomatics, including the ones you already possess. It would
> require handgun and semi-auto owners to be thumbprinted at a police
> station and sign a certificate that the gun will not be kept in a
> place where it could be used for the defense of the gun owner's
> family.

> Read more about H.R. 45 here.

> In all likelihood, H.R. 45 is probably a long shot at passing both
> houses of Congress, albeit gun owners should never take any proposed
> gun control bill for granted. The CIFTA treaty, however, is much more
> dangerous due to its subtlety and subterfuge, the less cumbersome
> process of passage, and the fact that it makes U.S. gun owners subject
> to international gun control laws.

> All in all, freedom in America is on the Obama White House chopping
> block. And this much is certain: if the American people do not retain
> the right to keep and bear arms, every other freedom we hold dear will
> quickly disappear as well. Moreover, if we do retain the right to keep
> and bear arms, it will only be because enough of us--and our state and
> federal legislators--resist the tyrannical gun control machinations of
> Barack Obama. And that means defeating the CIFTA treaty and H.R.
> 45.>end snip

> Peace,
> Doc