$4 billion dollars a year is spent in the global trade of small arms. Estimates are that about $1 billion of that is comprised of the illegal trade that arms brutal and repressive paramilitaries around the globe, that arms the militias in Somalia and marauders in Darfur, that arms the Taliban, al-Qaeda and insurgency forces throughout Iraq, that arms Robert Mugabe's henchman army as it punishes democracy in Zimbabwe. Still the Bush administration informs the American public and the entire world community that there "no need for treaties or agreements."
This action -or should I say "non-action"?- won John Bolton and the Bush administration some applause from groups like The National Rifle Association -"on principle." There are those who don't want to see "treaties or agreements" that could give rise to restrictive policies that might curb private ownership rights anywhere around the world -there are those who argue that privately born small arms serve to protect human rights. This is how a private citizenry opposes a repressive regime after all.
That's the theory anyway.
The fact that just the opposite is the case in Robert Mugabe's Zimabawe, just the opposite in the deserts of Darfur, and in the shooting galleries of Baghdad -that might confound the theory with a sorry dose of reality, with the very plain connection between blood on the streets and the smoking barrel of a gun.
There's a quote that comes to mind. It was Dwight Eisenhower who said it.
"I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it."
I guess that is the hopeful half of this story. In South Africa the government got out of the way and ultimately ended up following the lead of its people. There just might be a chance of doing that here just as well.
its as if the bushco trashing of our Constitution were not sufficient. Now we must hint at trashing the second amendment. The corporate political elite dream of a completely dis-armed citizenry. Is Mr. Driscoll aware that we have become a militarized police state? When owning a gun is a crime then only our criminal government will have guns. Perhaps Mr. Driscoll wishes to surrender himself to the beast. There are many who will not. I grow tired of seeing unarmed citizens gunned down by trigger-happy cops. Mr. Driscoll´s right wing government distributes guns freely throughout central america so that peasants may be murdered to free up land. I find it hard to believe anyone would want to make it harder for the underdogs to defend themselves. The death squads will not be limited to the third world. The criminal corporate world order will never release their stranglehold on us without a struggle. Does Mr. Driscoll actually think we will ever free ourselves by only throwing our money at the elite ? The mattoids have a target price of 200 dollars for a barrel of petroleum. Our food supply is being manipulated to produce engineered shortages. Corporate welfare and privatized prisons coupled with confiscations, siezures and hyper-inflation from FED money printing will strip us of our substance and land. There has to be limit to what they can take from us by force. If we do not at some point draw a line in the sand we will end up as slaves. It seems to me a better position for a "progressive" to take would be the de-militarization of our fascist central government.
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john riggs (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 369 comments)
on Friday, May 16, 2008 at 4:39:33 PM
Mr. Riggs is right on most counts. An individual right to bear arms is the only thing keeping Bush from declaring martial law and canceling elections.
Of course, back when the 2nd Amendment was written, citizens were on much more level ground with the government than we are now. Citizens and governments alike had the same kind of arms - mostly muskets, pistols and swords. The only equipment the government had that the people didn't were cannons and a navy. But that cannon isn't much good to you after the first shot, when ticked-off mob of armed Americans are over-running your position - even if all they have are axes and scythes.
The Founders also made it clear that there was to be no standing army, and one could only be raised in the case of war. The military was not to be used as a police force on citizens.
Now, the government has militarized our civilian police force. Body armor, automatic weapons, armored personnel carriers, night vision goggles, thermal imaging that sees through walls and roofs allowing the user to see exactly where each person is inside a home, from the street or from a helicopter.
The government owns all the big toys and fighter jets. But none of that would help the men who unleashed such destruction against us. There's a lot more of us than there are of them, but if we have no access to arms - even small ones - they can do whatever they damn well please.
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JC Garrett (31 articles, 39 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 290 comments)
on Friday, May 16, 2008 at 10:11:59 PM
Tom is wrong. At least as far as this country is concerned.
I have my Glock for a reason. And to my mind, it is a very good reason.
If you trust only the oppressors to have guns. Well, then, I guess the game is done. Enjoy your microchip.
No guarantee either way... but I'd rather have a chance. If only to make a statement when they come to take me to the camps..... because I will Not go.
In my pacifist, hippy freak days... never would I have thought I'd come eventually to agree with Charlton Heston.....
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richard (0 articles, 4 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 708 comments)
on Friday, May 16, 2008 at 10:31:10 PM
So nobody wants to reconcile themselves to the fact that the arms trade we are talking about is not in hand guns or flintlock muskets. It's in massive caches of AK-47's, rocket launchers and grenades. These are the tools of paramilitary thugs, militant militias and the like. THESE ARE THE OPPRESSORS. They are the snipers taking out Americans as they walk the line in Iraq and Afghanistan. The treaty (that our government said was unnecessary) would have simply insisted that governments take responsibility for where they send massive shipments of military equipment.
But the slippery slope theory I see being articulated in the comments above holds that any regulation is the same as a complete surrender of rights.
Great theory, folks. Just please realize what a useful bunch of fools you're being to a whole host of brutally repressive dictator's and their violent thugs.
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Tom Driscoll (26 articles, 1 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 14 comments)
on Saturday, May 17, 2008 at 7:35:45 AM
I was pretty much with you until the last sentence. When I read that, I saw that you weren't just talking about the proliferation by governments of huge shipments of weapons into places where they use them for ethnic cleansing. Here, only the police use them for that.
I hate Bolton and everything he stands for. I also think that our government has no business selling arms to most of the people they sell arms to. Like all three sides fighting in Iraq. You wanna know who's been "arming the enemy?" Not Iran. We've sold more guns and bombs to every side than Iran ever thought about.
In Iraq, at least until recently, every family is allowed one AK-47 for protection. If I were in Iraq, you can bet I'd have one. Who wouldn't?
The problem is that the bad guys, whether street thugs or government thugs, are ALWAYS going to have guns. They will buy them somewhere. A citizenry that is not armed will be slaves to a government that is armed. No revolution in history would have been possible in a case like that, including ours.
Should we have signed a treaty to be accountable for our arms sales? Yes.
Should we hope that someday in America we will vote to disarm the people while leaving an armed government?
We'd be crazy to hope for that.
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JC Garrett (31 articles, 39 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 290 comments)
on Saturday, May 17, 2008 at 12:28:35 PM
but You cant come in. If I recall correctly the US military LOST 200,000 weapons in Iraq. Thats a convenient way to keep the military spending going. Just as the Kalishnikov has been used to subdue it has also been used to free nations. We all dream of a perfect world, but this world is not perfect, it is ruled by violence and the violent take it by force. When that which is perfect has come that which is in part will be done away with. He who has no sword let him sell his cloak and buy one. I know Mr. Driscoll´s motives are honest , but they are a little too politically correct for Me. The time to beat our swords into plows has not yet arrived. When the dragon is in chains I will join You in Your endeavor Mr. Driscoll.
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john riggs (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 369 comments)
on Saturday, May 17, 2008 at 3:44:02 PM
You are living in a dream world. "Can't everyone just get along?" No.
The U.S. is in transition from world power monger to "what the heck happened?" As employment continues to slide and desperation follows the apathy of the past boom years, personal defense will take on a whole new meaning.
As the adage goes, dialing 911 is our government's answer to dial-a-prayer.
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Mike Folkerth (117 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 546 comments)
on Sunday, May 18, 2008 at 11:12:18 AM
You folks are all using that slippery reasoning about slopes. A whole bunch of the commentary above equates support for a treaty aimed at making governments accountable for their trade in and transit of small arms with some kind of assault in gun rights here at home. It's a false correlation. What the treaty is aimed at is the kind of proxy war manipulation and empty profiteering that throws automatic weapons onto situations of tension and conflict like gasoline on a smoldering fire. The treaty at issue proposes nothing to abrade individual gun ownership rights. Bush and Bolton might have been willing to pander to the NRA for support on this issue but the only thing they were protecting was their own ability to further militarize already dangerous situations around the world without having to be accountable to objective standards about human rights.
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Tom Driscoll (26 articles, 1 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 14 comments)
on Sunday, May 18, 2008 at 1:21:34 PM
I think it should be illegal to sell weapons to oppressive governments, mercenaries and paramilitaries. However I see nothing wrong with selling weapons to militias and insurgents. Militias are necessary for people to defend themselves against an oppressive government. The 2nd amendment of the US Constitution says a well regulated militia has a right to bear arms and is necessary to the security of a free state. Insurgents are just people who rebel against an oppressive state. The insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan have every right to shoot the occupying American military forces and their allies. They also have the right to overthrow the puppet governments the US has placed in power in those countries. If the insurgents had no weapons then they wouldn't be able to defend their country against foreign occupation and its puppet governments.
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Ty (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 672 comments)
on Monday, May 19, 2008 at 5:07:40 PM
