Obama Pushes Congress To Ratify UN Gun Control Treaty

67 senators will have to vote in favor of the treaty if it is to be ratified, but with 50 already pledging to vote against it (including even three Democrats), it seems unlikely that Obama will be able to get his wish of an internationally-sanctioned gun registration regime. Nevertheless, it’s still possible that he will use executive orders to sidestep Congress’s decision and act as if the treaty was approved:

“The Arms Trade Treaty went into effect on Christmas Eve 2014, but the administration has never submitted the treaty to the Senate for ratification, where it would require 67 senators voting for it to pass. After Kerry signed on in 2013, 50 senators—including three Democrats—signed a letter to Obama expressing concern the treaty was overly “vague and easily politicized” and could encourage a national gun registry.

It’s a horrible treaty, Bromund said, but it won’t likely lead to more gun control.

‘Are people using it to justify gun control? Yes,’ Bromund said. ‘But what is the mechanism to achieve that? This is about exports or imports. In theory, a judge could say the United States must respect the [Arms Trade Treaty] and that all arms transactions within the U.S. are subject to it, but that would be a huge stretch.’

The treaty has been such an administrative disaster that it likely will have no impact at all, Bromund said. He noted the treaty is almost entirely European countries rarely living up to the reporting requirements of the treaty.

‘I basically think we are winning on this. This is not going to work,’ Bromund said. ‘It’s turning into nothing but boring bureaucratic meetings. The gun controllers will lose interest and find another toy.’

A recent report by Bromund looked at reporting problems, among other failings of the participants.

States parties to the [Arms Trade Treaty] are already failing to meet its reporting requirements. As of Aug. 15, 2016, of the 66 states parties that were supposed to file an initial report on their implementation of the treaty by that date, only 49 had done so, and of these, 33 were in Europe. As of the same date, of the 83 states parties, only 46 (32 of them in Europe) had filed an annual report for 2015 on authorized imports and exports of conventional arms, a report due on May 31, 2016. In short, treaty reporting is lagging badly, and outside Europe, few nations are complying even nominally with the most basic treaty requirements.”

Source: Daily Signal