David E. Petzal – The Gun Nut

October 29, 2007
Exclusive: Fred Thompson on the U.N.

My Fellow Americans:

I will be brief. Yesterday, I was contacted by a Mr. Paul Jon Henke,
who handles “new media” relations for Fred Thompson, the tallest
Republican presidential candidate who is also an actor. Mr. Henke has
sent us the following statement, which the Gun Nut is running as a
public service. The statement is about the U.N.’s position on the
individual ownership of guns:

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Last year, the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and
Protection of Human Rights declared that international human rights
law requires all nations to adopt strict gun control laws. These
“minimum” provisions are much more restrictive than any of those on
the books anywhere in the U.S. and would almost certainly violate the
Second Amendment of our Constitution.

Besides concluding that all nations are obligated under international
human rights law to control the small arms and light weapons to which
its civilian population has access, the UN report remarkably denied
the existence of any human right to self-defense, evidently
overlooking the work of Hugo Grotius, the 17th century scholar
credited as the founder of international law, who wrote, “It is to be
observed that [the] Right of Self-Defence, arises directly and
immediately from the Care of our own Preservation, which Nature
recommends to every one. . . ,” and that this right is so primary,
that it cannot be denied on the basis that it is not “expressly set
forth.”

There is another disturbing aspect to this call for international
global gun control. Throughout modern history, the forced disarmament
of people by its government has often been accompanied or followed by
that government’s commission of often massive human rights abuses. In
fact, no genocide in the 20th century occurred when the victim
population still possessed small arms, legally or illegally, with
which to defend themselves.

So now the UN wants to disarm civilians? Where was the UN when the
massacres in Rwanda occurred? What did the UN do to protect the
victims of ethnic massacres in Bosnia? Disarming civilians under the
guise of international human rights law will only lead to more such
genocides by ensuring that civilians can never defend themselves! It
would be funny if it weren’t so perverse.

Thankfully, the Framers of our Constitution recognized this potential
peril to our liberty, and enshrined in our Second Amendment the more
basic right of self-defense. The U.N. can say what it likes about
other countries’ citizens’ possession of small arms being a violation
of human rights law, but so long as the United States is a sovereign
nation governed by its Constitution, its words will have no effect
here. And I am glad for it.