Michelle Malkin joins the list of bloggers and other who are alarmed by the upcoming UN conference on global gun control. She points to a release by the Second Amendment Foundation, which includes this:
The U.N. Conference on Global Gun Control, scheduled June 24- July 7, poses a direct threat to our constitutionally-protected individual right to keep and bear arms, said Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF). Gottlieb will attend the conference, but he suggests that this may be an opportune time for Congress and the White House to reconsider this nation's level of financial support for an international organization that now wants to write a treaty that specifically attacks a cornerstone of our federal constitution, and the lynchpin to our liberty. . . .
"Yet, as we celebrate our 230th anniversary, global anti- gunners, under the guise of reviewing a U.N. program of action on small arms and light weapons, want to create a binding international agreement that could supersede our laws and constitution," Gottlieb said. "We have done much for the U.N. and in return, the organization has hosted despots, tyrants and dictators whose record of human rights abuses, aggression and genocide speaks for itself. And now comes an attack on our constitution, on our national holiday.
Gottlieb and other defenders of Americans' right to bear arms are justifiably alarmed by the UN's blatant anti-Americanism, of which the upcoming conference is but the latest manifestation.
It is my view, however, that the U.S. cannot effectively amend the Constitution and do away with the right to bear arms simply by virtue of its membership in the UN. I have made that point in connection with our right to declare war regardless of the UN's position on such a declaration. (See this, this, and this.) The same logic applies to the Second Amendment.
I am not counseling complacency in the face of enemies abroad and dupes at home. I am saying that -- in the end and given the right Supreme Court (which we probably have on this issue) -- the Second Amendment will survive.
