Arms Trade Treaty Talks - Day 4

Ginny Simone of NRA News discusses Day 4 of the UN Arms Trade Treaty talks with Tom Mason of the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities. They discussed the organizational difficulties, the committees that will deal with the scope of the treaty as well as its preamble, the right to self defense (of the state and not the individual), and the refusal of many states to differentiate between military firearms and civilian firearms.

Dr. Ted Bromund of the Heritage Foundation has his summation of the day's event's here. Bromund says that Venezuela won "the crazy prize" for their rant against "imperialists":

In previous sessions, Cuba, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia had all put in strong showings with speeches that were unprincipled and autocrat-friendly, but when it came to crazy, Venezuela lapped the field with a speech that will be tough to beat.

In a lengthy rant attacking the “maturity” of the assembled nations, it denounced the “imperial powers” for arming the Libyan rebels who overthrew Muammar Qadhafi, demanded that the world look seriously at controlling the “imperialists” (i.e., the U.S.) who had nuclear weapons, condemned foreign aid providers for insisting on the “downsizing” of governments, and stated that it needed arms to deal with internal threats (i.e., to continue to oppress its own population).

Arms Trade Treaty Talks - Day 1

Ginny Simone of NRA News ends the first day of the Arms Trade Treaty Talks with a recap featuring Tom Mason from the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities. The day was consumed with the argument of whether or not the Palestinians would be seated at the talks. For them, this is a backdoor method of trying to get recognition as a state. The United States was opposed to the seating of the PLO.

The other issue was when NGOs - non-governmental organizations - such as the NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation were to speak. They had expected to speak near the end of the talks but their participation has been pushed up to this week. As Ginny notes, it looks like that they want to get the NGOs in and out so they can do whatever they want to do. Mr. Mason tends to agree with her on that.

Dr. Ted Bromund of the Heritage Foundation provides his take on Day 1 here.

Arms Trade Treaty Talks - Day 2

On Day 2 of the Arms Trade Treaty Talks at the United Nations, Ginny Simone of NRA News speaks with Dr. Ted Bromund of the Heritage Foundation. Dr. Bromund has been blogging these talks and his post for Day 2 can be found here.

Day 2 was mostly consumed with the Palestinians and their efforts to be seated as an observer states.

Dr. Bromund makes a very good point in this video about all the nations who are pushing for the Arms Trade Treaty. They are insisting it is needed so that the standards for buying and selling arms are raised. If that is the case, Dr. Bromund asks why do they need a treaty to raise the standards when they can do it themselves. I think we know that the issue really isn't standards but control.