It should come as no surprise to most gun owners that the UN is not gun-friendly. Many gun owners are well aware of the UN Small Arms Treaty, and they helped stave off that threat earlier this year, at least for the present. What most gun owners don’t know, however, is that the UN is using innocuous-sounding human rights treaties like the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) to advance their anti-gun agenda.
Both treaties use the “best interest of the child” standard as the guiding principle for all situations involving children (CRC Article 3.1; CRPD Article 7.2). This nebulous legal standard simply means that a government bureaucrat or judge has the final say regarding what is best for each child, regardless of what the child’s or the parent’s wishes are. The traditional American legal standard whereby “fit parents” (those not guilty of abuse or neglect) are free to direct the upbringing, education and care of their children will no longer apply. Government bureaucrats will have the power to review and overturn any parental decision.
Based on the UN’s staunch anti-gun position, especially with relation to children, we can be fairly confident that the “best interest of the child” standard would be interpreted in an anti-gun manner. A UN pamphlet entitled No Guns Please, We Are Children makes clear that the UN intends to:
- “Collect and destroy small arms and light weapons through community programmes…” The UN does not make any distinction between war-torn countries and countries like the U.S.
- “Promote an integrated approach to the issue of the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, which … ensures the adoption of measures that target manufacturers and those trading and benefiting from the sale of small arms.” No distinction is made between black-market international distributors and the owners of your local U.S. gun store who are in full compliance with applicable laws.
- “[Ensure] that small arms and light weapons are not easy to acquire and are never accessible to children.” The UN makes no distinction between law-abiding citizens and criminals or between child soldiers and teenage sportsmen. The UN’s view is that no private person, especially if they are under 18, should ever come in contact with a firearm.
Based on these facts, it is easy to imagine a future where parents are forced to choose between their children and their guns. A judge could determine under UN standards that it is not in the best interest of the child to live in a house where guns are present. The government would then threaten to remove children unless their parents were willing to give up their guns ‘voluntarily.’ Thus, the “best interest of the child” standard found in the CRC and CRPD can be used to set up a ‘catch-22’ where you are forced to decide between keeping your guns and keeping your kids.
We need the assistance of all gun owners to put a permanent stop to these treaties. Fortunately, we have successfully blocked the CRC treaty for this session, but the CRPD treaty is moving forward quickly. Call your U.S. Senators today and ask them to oppose the CRPD treaty (Check to see if your Senators are Champions of Sovereignty here).
Source:
- UNICEF, No Guns, Please, We Are Children, 2001, available at http://www.unicef.org/emerg/files/Emergencies_No_guns_please_leaflet.pdf
Jonathan Horton
Latest posts by Jonathan Horton (see all)
- UN Human Rights Treaties Threaten Gun Ownership - August 20, 2012
