Arms Trade Treaty conference ends without agreement
The weeks-long conference at the United Nations to produce an Arms Trade Treaty is ending without the creation of a treaty. None of the draft treaties which have circulated in the past several days came remotely close to finding consensus support.
The impossibility of achieving consensus involved a wide variety of issues and nations, far beyond the Second Amendment concerns that have been raised by many American citizens.
The 2001 UN Programme of Action on Small Arms remains in effect. Over the last two decades, a large gun control infrastructure has grown up in the United Nations, not only in the headquarters building, but also within many of the UN various commissions and departments. Likewise, there are a significant number of NGOs which have a strong commitment to global gun control, and to using international law and the UN to solve what they consider to be the problem of excessive gun ownership in the United States. The NGOs and their UN allies have successfully used the 2001 PoA to sharply restrict gun ownership in some parts of the world, and they would have used the ATT for the same purpose. That they did not succeed in creating an ATT may be very disappointing to them; they are not going to go away, or relent in the pursuit of their objectives.
But in their pursuit, they are not going to have the new weapon of an ATT. This is good news for human rights worldwide, especially for the fundamental human right of self-defense against violent criminals, and against violent criminal tyrannical governments.
