Tell Your Senators NO!

President Obama Backs InterAmerican Arms Treaty

MEXICO CITY, April 16–President Obama will announce in a visit here today that he will push the U.S. Senate to ratify an inter-American arms trafficking treaty designed to curb the flow of guns and ammunition to drug cartels and other armed groups in the hemisphere.

The Clinton administration signed the treaty, better known by its Spanish acronym CIFTA, after the Organization of American States adopted it in 1997. In all, 33 countries in the hemisphere have signed the treaty. The United States is one of four nations that have yet to ratify the convention, although Obama administration officials say the U.S. government has sought to abide by the spirit of the treaty for years.

I found the following information on the treaty:

The treaty bans “illicit manufacturing” of firearms, defined as:

…the manufacture or assembly of firearms, ammunition, explosives, and other related materials:
a. from components or parts illicitly trafficked; or
b. without a license from a competent governmental authority of the State Party where the manufacture or assembly takes place; or
c. without marking the firearms that require marking at the time of manufacturing.

This would seem to require a government license for home building, assembling from parts, and quite likely many types of repairs and customizations. And here’s the really scary part, it defines “other related materials” this way: “any component, part, or replacement part of a firearm, or an accessory which can be attached to a firearm.” This would make all people who make accessories that attach to a firearm to have a license. It would presumably also ban home manufacture of these items without a government license. Do you own trigger jobs? Reload your own ammunition? Not anymore, not without a government license!

Basically, if you wanted to do any work on your firearms (including cosmetic), you would either have to get a license or try to find someone with a license to do the work. Most likely, this would end up putting thousands of people in this country out of work. We need to stop the bullshit claims that Mexican drug gangs are getting all of their firearms from the USA. As I pointed out in a previous post, 17% of the firearms the Mexican government has seized are traced back to the USA. The odds are, the majority those were brought across the border by the Mexican military and then stolen from their bases. It makes absolutely no sense for a Mexican drug trafficker to buy a semiautomatic AK-47 or AR15 in the USA for $750 or more, when he can buy a full auto version in Guatemala for $25. So I plead with you, contact your Senators (by phone preferrably) and let them know that you oppose the ratification of this treaty.