Obama Positioning For Backdoor Gun Control
Friday, April 24, 2009
By Pastor Chuck Baldwin
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.
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.
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Chuck Baldwin is Founder-Pastor of Crossroads Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida. In 1985 the church was recognized by President Ronald Reagan for its unusual growth and influence.
Dr. Baldwin is the host of a lively, hard-hitting syndicated radio talk show on the Genesis Communications Network called, “Chuck Baldwin Live” This is a daily, one hour long call-in show in which Dr. Baldwin addresses current event topics from a conservative Christian point of view. Pastor Baldwin writes weekly articles on the internet http://www.ChuckBaldwinLive.com and newspapers.
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