NSSF President Steve Sanetti was interviewed by Ginny Simone of NRA News at the recent IWA Show in Germany. This show is the European equivalent to the SHOT Show. They discussed the international aspects of privately owned firearms, the industry, and, most importantly, the UN's Arms Trade Treaty.
The Arms Trade Treaty is an UN effort that seeks to control small arms and ammunition. Under the draft terms of this treaty, a home reloader would be considered an ammunition manufacturer and would have to be licensed. The previous Bush Administration had told these folks to take a hike but the current Obama Administration has indicated their support for the treaty. All international treaties to which the United States is a party must be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. Currently, 50-some Senators have voiced their opposition to it.
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Such a treaty would not be "self-executing"; as Wikipedia puts it:
ReplyDeleteTreaties may be seen as 'self-executing', in that merely becoming a party puts the treaty and all of its obligations in action. Other treaties may be non-self-executing and require 'implementing legislation'—a change in the domestic law of a state party that will direct or enable it to fulfill treaty obligations. An example of a treaty requiring such legislation would be one mandating local prosecution by a party for particular crimes.
So nothing can happen to the home reloader unless e.g. the GCA of '68 allows the creation of new regulations (which I doubt is true of any Federal gun law) without the Congress passing a law. Which isn't going to happen.
However the GCA of '68 allows for serious mischief in importation, e.g. while the AW ban has lapsed, we're still living under George H. W. Bush's AR import ban, so an anti-gun Executive could seriously strengthen that sort of thing ... or the Supremes could zap the "sporting purpose" part of the CGA of '68 as being inconsistent with their reading of the 2nd Amendment, which allows for unsporting home self-defense.
At worst case a lot of EBRs and I suppose handguns would become unavailable while I'd expect FNH to seriously expand their facilities in the US (they've been delighted to sell guns to US consumers for 7 decades or more and don't care about the whining of gun grabbers).