The Firearm Blog

Xavier spotted the following on change.gov, the official president-elect website:

As president, Barack Obama would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals who shouldn’t have them. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets.

It also looks like the Obama administration will likely support the proposed UN arms trade treaty. From the LA Times (November 1, 2008):

In a United Nations General Assembly vote, 147 of its 192 members voted in favor of creating a global treaty that would impose rules on the import, export and transfer of weapons among nations. Only the U.S., long an opponent of such a treaty, and Zimbabwe voted against the idea. Arms exporters such as China, Russia and Israel showed their reluctance over the regulations by abstaining; other nations were absent.

I think it is also safe to say that Obama will not lift the import ban on Chinese/Norinco arms. If you want that Type 97 bullpup you are going to have to move to Canada!

Men on horseback armed with AKs and RPGs attacked UN peacekeepers in Darfur earlier this year. It has only now been reported. From the BBC:

The joint UN-African Union troops were ambushed by up to 60 men armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades on Wednesday, the Unamid peace force said.

It is not clear who was behind the attack, which has been made public for the first time.

The UN took joint control of the force in January but has not been able to bring peace to the region.

Who is Africa’s biggest supplier of arms to criminals? I don’t know, but I think the UN are giving them some serious competition
More here.

I saw this video on kaiservontexas’s blog. The guy who gives this speech is awesome. It is a very moving speech and definitely worth watching.

Hillel Neuer of UN Watch exposes the hypocrisy of the UN Human Rights Council (March 23, 2007). For the first time ever, the Council president, Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba of Mexico, rejects the speech as “inadmissible” and bans it from ever being delivered again.

When the UN are not blaming Israel and the US, ignoring crimes against humanity and trying to take control of the internet from the US, they are trying to ban small arms. They make me sick.

In 2009 the UN Human Rights council will include China, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Cuba, all of which have absolutely shocking human rights records.

The Gun Nut has published a letter from Fred Thompson, actor and presidential candidate. It is worth reading:

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.”

More here.