UN Gun Summit Aftermath

So the whole thing appears to have ended in disarray. Though it would be interesting to find someone's analysis of the players and how things fell out. I'd like to know who were the major countries that were playing the gun-control hand and those that stood against them. (Other than the US.)

The UN Gun Summit is over, and gun owners have won for now. The conference ended in chaos on Friday afternoon when the various nations in attendance failed to agree on a written plan of action on how to deal small arms and light weapons. Because no document could be produced, no agreement could be made on continuing the process with further meetings and summits. For now, the UN's Program of Action on Small Arms and light weapons is over. No further meetings are scheduled.

Two weeks of meetings, statements, press conferences, and behind the scenes negotiations could not prevent the summit from ending in failure. The United States remained strong in its opposition to institutionalizing the small arms and light weapons summits, and would not agree to continuing the process beyond the summit that just concluded. Other countries had similar disagreements with various parts of the draft document that had been circulating since the first week of the session came to a close.

The part that I should look at is those who are talking about a summit outside of the UN.

NRAnews.com Executive Editor Ginny Simone, who provided live coverage from the United Nations every day of the summit, reported that several countries and non-governmental organizations discussed holding meetings in Geneva to try and continue the process of global gun control. As bad as the UN process has been, private meetings outside of the United Nations might be even worse.

If the various countries that support the end of civilian firearms ownership (and the list is long) decide to get together for informal private meetings, they can pick and choose who they want to be a part of the process. At the United Nations, the National Rifle Association is an accredited non-governmental organization and can monitor what's taking place in many of the meetings. At a private summit, it would be up to the organizers to give gun owners a seat at the table. They could bar the press from attending, or shut out programs like NRAnews.com from covering the process. And you don't need the United Nations to get a formal treaty written. The international treaty covering land mines, for instance, came about not at the United Nations, but at a summit in Ottawa.

Not being completely blind, I'd like to have a more moderate view of the whole thing rather than the NRA view. I like the NRA running the fight, though I don't always agree with all their talking points. Unfortunately, they have to play by the same rules as the gun grabbers. Though, from what I've seen, they at least provide honest statistics for most of what they put forward. (Unfortunately, the NRAnews website is rather poor when it comes to finding information.)

This article from the WaTimes shows a couple of statements from Gun Activists.

"A firearm is a tool, a very simple tool that dates back to the 12th century," said Thomas Mason, a frequent gun lobbyist who represented the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute at the conference. "Like any tool, it can be used for great good or great harm," he said.

The alliance of two dozen manufacturers has embraced marking and tracing of weapons but is opposed to similar tracking for ammunition, as is commonly proposed on the sidelines of the conference. As many as 14 billion rounds of ammunition are produced each year, and manufacturers note that it would be technically and logistically impossible to mark each bullet.

There are comments from the Firearms Importers Roundtable Trade Group (A lobby group with no website that I can find.), Safari Club International, and a firearms broker. Not all the most convincing statements, though their statements are brief and may not give a very good representation of their overall points.

It will be interesting to see what develops from this. Especially if they do move to a closed summit in Geneva. That should make things especially worrisome with little to no access to the activities therein. The end game could be telling though depending on when they decide to bring this before the international community for ratification. If it comes under a democratic president, one can only wonder about how they would choose to represent the citizens in going for a signature on such a treaty. Not to mention what would happen in the Senate.