UN threatens U.S. gun lovers;
Date: May 29, 2006 4:47 PM
PUBLICATION: The Hamilton Spectator
DATE: 2006.05.27
EDITION: Final
SECTION: Discover
PAGE: D18
SOURCE: The Economist
ILLUSTRATION: Photo: Paul Hosefros, the New York Times / Wayne
LaPierre,executive vice-president of the National Rifle Association,
claims the ‘global war on guns’ will boost NRA membership from 4 million
to 8 million.
WORD COUNT: 745

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UN threatens U.S. gun lovers; The world body is promoting a disarmament
move and the National Rifle Association doesn’t like that

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Duku Paul does not know how many people he has killed. Though still
young, he is a veteran of one of West Africa’s nastiest civil wars. For
more than a decade, he helped to burn, loot and bloody his homeland,
Liberia.

Then, in 2003, the United Nations, with U.S. backing, brought peace.
Bangladeshi blue helmets took Paul’s gun and gave him $300 US.

Interviewed last year, he said he was sorry that he ever became a
soldier and that he wanted to get back to school.

Paul was enrolled in what the United Nations calls a “disarmament,
demobilization, rehabilitation and reintegration” program. The world
body is keen to promote such programs wherever appropriate. The National
Rifle Association (NRA), the lobby for U.S. gun lovers, does not like
the sound of that.

“So, after we are disarmed, the UN wants us demobilized and
reintegrated. I can hear it now: ‘Step right this way for your
reprogramming, sir. Once we confiscate your guns, we can demobilize your
aggressive instincts and reintegrate you into civil society.’

“No thanks,” shudders Wayne LaPierre, the indefatigable executive vice-
president of the NRA.

Why does the UN want to take away guns from Americans? Because it is a
club of governments, some of which want to “strip opposition forces of
the means to challenge their authority,” argues LaPierre.

During the 20th century, governments murdered 169 million people in
various parts of the world, he says. Individual gun ownership is the
“ultimate protection against tyranny.”

LaPierre was signing copies of his new book, The Global War on Your
Guns: Inside the U.N. Plan to Destroy the Bill of Rights, at the NRA’s
annual convention in Milwaukee on May 19-21.

What do rank-and-file members think? Joe Carlson, a rifle salesperson,
is serenely unaware of the threat. “I’d not heard about that,” he says.
“I’ve been so busy selling these (award-winning semi-automatic weapons).
I’d better take a look.”

Others are better informed. “All these pirate governments want to take
from people their rights. That’s wrong,” says Greg Johnson, who runs a
lodge in Michigan where you can shoot imported Russian wild boars.

For both men, their livelihoods are at stake. Johnson’s customers can,
it is true, hunt wild boars with “stick and string” (i.e., a bow and
arrows). But most would prefer to bring their favourite firearm, for
those “raging Russian” boars are fierce.

“If you hunt him, he’ll hunt you,” says Johnson, adding that it is the
kind of beast that was running around in the Dark Ages. Yes, “It’s one
primordial pork chop.”

Carlson’s position is even more precarious. The guns he sells are more
powerful than the M4 rifles that the U.S. Army uses. (As any gun lover
knows, with the M4 “there’s a problem with one-shot kills,” says
Carlson: i.e., soldiers are finding it tricky to take out distant
targets with a single shot.)

Under Bill Clinton, they were labelled “assault rifles” (inaccurately,
in Carlson’s view) and banned. Congress let the ban lapse in 2004. If
“the wrong people” are elected, says Carlson, they’d ban them again in
a
heartbeat.

The NRA, like so many conservative U.S. groups, has long detested the
United Nations. But LaPierre’s claim that it is “the biggest coming
threat” to gun lovers represents a new emphasis.

It reflects, in part, his organization’s astonishing success at home.
The Second Amendment is in “the best shape it’s been in for decades,”
says LaPierre. “Gun haters” consistently lose elections. The president
and both houses of Congress are solidly pro-gun.

Last year, Congress passed legislation protecting gun manufacturers from
“frivolous” lawsuits. Of the 50 states, only two — Wisconsin and
Illinois — refuse to let law-abiding citizens carry concealed firearms.

Challenges remain, of course. During the posthurricane lawlessness in
New Orleans last year, the police confiscated a number of legally held
firearms from civilians.

Last week, the NRA urged every mayor and police chief in the United
States to pledge never to disarm law-abiding citizens.

The governor of Wisconsin, Jim Doyle, has twice vetoed a law that would
have allowed licensed citizens to carry concealed handguns. Gun owners
are urged to Dump Doyle, among others, at the midterm elections in
November.

For a truly all-embracing threat, however, the UN is hard to beat.
LaPierre predicts that the “global war on guns” will boost the NRA’s
membership from 4 million to 8 million, and reduce Hillary Clinton’s
chances of becoming president in 2008.

This last point is crucial.

The UN, whatever its evil aims, is hardly in a position to push Uncle
Sam around.

To disarm Americans, it would need Congress on its side, plus a U.S.
president willing to sign an antigun treaty and appoint Supreme Court
justices willing to rule it constitutional.

LaPierre anticipates that some people might find this far-fetched. “I
can hear some readers now, ‘Oh, Wayne’s just overreacting,”" he writes.
But that is what they want you to believe.

“Just how sure is the United Nations that it can take your guns?” he
asks.

His answer: “The UN chose the Fourth of July to hold its global gun ban
summit on American soil!”