Back Door Gun Control?

by Chuck Baldwin
April 24, 2009

On his recent trip to Central America, President Barack Obama did more than cozy up to Marxist dictators; he also signed onto an international treaty that could, in effect, be used as backdoor gun control. It appears that Obama wants to use international treaties to do what congressional legislation is not able to do: further restrict the right of the American people to keep and bear arms.

Obama is using the oft-disproved contention that "90% of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States" as the stated basis of his support for the international treaty he is promoting. The treaty is formally known as the Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and Other Related Materials (CIFTA) treaty. The Bill Clinton administration signed the treaty back in 1997, but the U.S. Senate has never ratified the treaty. Obama intends to change that.

To date, 33 nations in the western hemisphere have signed the treaty. The U.S. is one of four nations that have yet to ratify it. According to one senior Obama administration official, passing the treaty is a "high priority" for the President.

If ratified, the treaty would require the United States to adopt "strict licensing requirements, mark firearms when they are made and imported to make them easier to trace, and establish a process for sharing information between national law enforcement agencies investigating [gun] smuggling."

Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee promises to "work for its [the CIFTA treaty's] approval by the Senate."

Should the Senate ratify CIFTA, Americans who reload ammunition would be required to get a license from the government, and factory guns and ammunition would be priced almost out of existence due to governmental requirements to "mark" each one manufactured. Even the simple act of adding an after-market piece of equipment to a firearm, such as a scope or bipod, or reassembling a gun after cleaning it could fall into the category of "illicit manufacturing" of firearms and require government license and oversight.

In addition, CIFTA would authorize the U.S. federal government (and open the door to international entities) to supervise and regulate virtually the entire American firearms industry. Making matters worse is the fact that, as a treaty, this Act does not have to be passed by both houses of Congress, nor is it subject to judicial oversight. All Obama needs to do in order to enact this unconstitutional and egregious form of gun control is convince a Democratic-controlled Senate to pass it.

Obviously, the United Nations, from its very inception, has been one of the world's most ardent gun control proponents. As anyone who has ever driven by the U.N. building in New York City knows, a huge statue of an American-made revolver with its barrel twisted in the shape of a pretzel greets every visitor. The CIFTA treaty is one of the U.N.'s pet projects in order to achieve this long-held ambition.

Of course, Obama is a longtime liberal radical when it comes to the Second Amendment. As a senator, he voted against the Second Amendment at every opportunity. He has never seen a piece of gun control legislation that he did not support. And as I have said before in this column, gun control is high on the list of priorities for the newly elected President Barack Obama.

For Obama to intimate that 90% of the firearms used by Mexican drug cartels come from the United States reveals either a truly dishonest and deceptive mind or a totally misinformed and naïve one. Many studies have thoroughly debunked the 90% myth, including one by William La Jeunesse and Maxim Lott in a recent Fox News report. According to these researchers, the real number is closer to 17%.

According to La Jeunesse and Lott, Mexican drug cartels, which control billions of dollars, obtain the overwhelming majority of their guns from the Black Market, Russian crime syndicates, South America, China, Guatemala, and even from the Mexican army.

In fact, Mexico is a virtual arms bazaar: AK-47s from China; fragmentation grenades from South Korea; shoulder-fired rocket launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc dealers; assault weapons from China; and explosives from Korea--just to name a few sources.

In addition, according to Mexican Congressman Robert Badillo, more than 150,000 Mexican soldiers have deserted in just the last six years. The vast majority of them took their weapons with them, including the standard issue M-16 assault rifle made in Belgium.

And please do not forget that corruption within the Mexican government is rampant. Many news sources have covered stories of how drug cartels bribe Mexican officials. An article in the New York Times last year reported, "One of Mexico's most notorious drug cartels made huge cash payments to officials in the Mexican attorney general's office in exchange for confidential information on anti-drug operations . . . the cartel might have had an informant inside the American embassy."

The Mexican drug cartels control a multi-billion dollar enterprise that has more than enough resources to obtain planeloads of weapons from all over the world. For Obama to assert that 90% of the Mexican drug cartels' firearms come from the United States is a bald-faced lie! Again, either Obama is stupid and naïve or he is deliberately lying to the American people in order to "sell" the CIFTA treaty to the U.S. Senate. I think we all know that Mr. Obama is anything but stupid and naïve.

Read more about the CIFTA treaty at

http://gunowners.org/a042109.htm

In addition to the CIFTA treaty, liberal Chicago Democrat Congressman Bobby Rush has introduced H.R. 45 in the House of Representatives. This bill is anything but subtle. It is an in-your-face gun control bill that would make "Mr. Gun Control," the late Senator Howard Metzenbaum, shout Hallelujah.

H.R. 45 would require a federal license for all handguns and semiautomatics, including the ones you already possess. It would require handgun and semi-auto owners to be thumbprinted at a police station and sign a certificate that the gun will not be kept in a place where it could be used for the defense of the gun owner's family.

Read more about H.R. 45 at

http://gunowners.org/hr45ana.htm

In all likelihood, H.R. 45 is probably a long shot at passing both houses of Congress, albeit gun owners should never take any proposed gun control bill for granted. The CIFTA treaty, however, is much more dangerous due to its subtlety and subterfuge, the less cumbersome process of passage, and the fact that it makes U.S. gun owners subject to international gun control laws.

All in all, freedom in America is on the Obama White House chopping block. And this much is certain: if the American people do not retain the right to keep and bear arms, every other freedom we hold dear will quickly disappear as well. Moreover, if we do retain the right to keep and bear arms, it will only be because enough of us--and our state and federal legislators--resist the tyrannical gun control machinations of Barack Obama. And that means defeating the CIFTA treaty and H.R. 45.

(c) Chuck Baldwin

This column is archived at
http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2009/cbarchive_20090424.html

Love Never Fails

Love is not proud
Love does not boast
Love after all
Matters the most

Love does not run
Love does not hide
Love does not keep
Locked inside

Love is the river that flows through
Love never fails you

Love will sustain
Love will provide
Love will not cease
At the end of time

Love will protect
Love always hopes
Love still believes
When you don’t

Love is the arms that are holding you
Love never fails you

When my heart won’t make a sound
When I can’t turn back around
When the sky is falling down
Nothing is greater than this
Greater than this

Love is right here
Love is alive
Love is the way
The truth the life

Love is the river than flows through
Love is the arms that are holding you
Love is the place you will fly to
Love never fails you

Brandon Heath

TEA Parties

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http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20090416/NEWS01/904160329/1001

Mr. President, Don't Mess With Texas

by Ted Nugent
03/18/2009

You may have noticed I am a big fan of rugged individualism, self-reliance, individual freedoms, liberty, self-determination and defiance -- heavy on the defiance.

These are all uniquely American characteristics that are hard-wired into our genes thanks to our amazing, defiant forefathers. You must never forget that our forefathers courageously sailed across an unknown ocean, to an unknown land to establish a country free of tyranny, kings and emperors. They risked their lives, fortunes and families to create America, a radical experiment in self government.

In gaining our freedom, they wrote our Constitution that limited the power and authorities of the federal government. They were smart enough even back then to know that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that unless government is fenced it, it’ll roam all over individual liberty.

When writing the Bill of Rights they wrote the Tenth Amendment. Now I am no lawyer or windbag law maker, but I find the words of the Tenth Amendment easy to understand: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States respectively, or simply put, by We the People.

You need not be a constitutional scholar to know the Tenth Amendment was clearly written to limit the abusive growth of power by the federal government. As Thomas Jefferson stated, "The States should be left to do whatever they can do as well as the federal government." The current gang of political punks, scoundrels and crooks in Washington DC are not worthy to stand in the shadow of the statue of Thomas Jefferson at the Jefferson Memorial in DC.

In an attempt to weaken the roles and responsibilities of the states, Fedzilla has worked tirelessly over the years to destroy the Tenth Amendment by arguing the Commerce Clause of the Constitution is more important and relevant than the Tenth Amendment. As we have witnessed, Fedzilla has grown exponentially and has become a repressive force in every facet of our lives.

But there is hope for freedom, liberty and the rights of states to determine their own destinies. Even though it is on life support, there is a faint heart beat left in the Tenth Amendment. And the Great Republic of Texas, under the leadership of the good Governor Rick Perry, is joining the sixteen other states that have already made their defiant, sovereign statement of autonomy in the right way.

These states have now evoked the Tenth Amendment and declared their sovereignty to put the brakes on Emperor Obama's mob-like fiscal mandates in a dangerous attempt to strangle the liberty out of states by forcing states to accept the so-called stimulus money and thereby become slaves to Fedzilla control.

A very fundamental grasp of economics is all that is required to know that in times of economic slow downs the very last thing that should be done is to increase government spending and to raise taxes on the producers, which is the exact course Emperor Obama has taken--and it is killing the economy, eliminating jobs, and will dramatically slow down our economic recovery.

Atlas is shrugging even more under the weight of the largest federal spending orgy in modern times. This immoral spending spree has wiped out 30 percent of the stock market since Emperor Obama's inauguration. With this unprecedented gluttony, Emperor Obama is bankrupting the future of our children and grandchildren. Nice change, Emperor. By the way, you have no clothes and it hurts to look at you.

Perry is doing the right thing, for of all the states, Texas must never allow itself to become a slave to Washington, D.C. Instead, we must chart our own economic destiny and recovery by refusing the stimulus money, freezing state spending, cutting state taxes across the board, and offering tax incentives to existing and new businesses.

Additionally, I urge Perry to immediately call a conference of Texas business leaders and request they develop a Texas Economic Roadmap for Recovery. Let Texas lead the way.

Like a flooded river that has left its banks, Fedzilla has trampled on the Constitution by ignoring the Tenth Amendment. Texas is reminding Fedzilla that our founding fathers wrote the Tenth Amendment for the very ugly reasons we are witnessing today. Emperor Obama's economic tyranny must be stopped. We must tell Emperor Obama to not mess with Texas. Don't tread on me or any of us.

In the spirit of the brave defenders who gave birth to Texas by giving their lives at the Alamo, I say, "Remember the Tenth Amendment!"

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=31104

He is Risen

By Chuck Baldwin
April 7, 2009

As we approach Resurrection Sunday, it behooves us to remind ourselves (Christians should need no reminder) of the significance of this season.

Along with the virgin birth, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ form the cornerstone of the Christian faith. Indeed, the resurrection of Jesus separates Christianity from all the world's religions.

Furthermore, the overwhelming number of America's founders understood the connection between the Christian faith and the rise of these United States. John Quincy Adams said, "The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity."

Adams also said, "From the day of the Declaration . . . They [the American people] were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of the Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledged as the rules of their conduct."

Then, on July 4, 1837, Adams said these words, "Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the World, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day? . . . Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the corner stone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity, and gave to the world the first irrevocable pledge of the fulfillment of the prophecies, announced directly from Heaven at the birth of the Savior and predicted by the greatest of the Hebrew prophets six hundred years before?"

Daniel Webster also acknowledged the relationship between our founders' Christian faith and America's creation. He said, "Finally, let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, or literary."

Noah Webster, the man who is called the Father of American Education, said, "Education is useless without the Bible." He also said, "The Bible was America's basic textbook in all fields."

Noah Webster went on to say, "In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government, ought to be instructed. . . . No truth is more evident to my mind, than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people."

One more quotation from Noah Webster is necessary at this point. He said, "The religion which has introduced civil liberty, is the religion of Christ and his apostles, which enjoins humility, piety, and benevolence; which acknowledges in every person a brother, or a sister, and a citizen with equal rights. This is genuine Christianity, and to this we owe our free constitutions of government."

These sentiments were the sentiments of America from the inception of our great country. Remember, the voyagers of the Mayflower made a covenant between themselves and Almighty God. It is called the Mayflower Compact, and in it they said the reason they had made the voyage and determined to plant a colony in the new world was "for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith."

It was only in the last half of the 20th Century that America began trying to distance itself from its Christian heritage. Yet today, educators, entertainers, chief executives, and politicians are in the process of supplanting our Christian heritage with the pseudo-religions of secularism, multiculturalism, and universalism.

What many people do not understand is that when America abandons its dependence upon the God of the Bible, it will--at the same time--surrender the very foundation of our liberty and independence. As Thomas Jefferson said, "And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?"
Patrick Henry agreed with Jefferson. He said, "It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains."

As we celebrate the vicarious death and victorious resurrection of Jesus Christ, let us remember the importance of preserving liberty within these United States of America. And this commitment involves much more than attending church once a week or repeating an occasional catechism. It means we must seek to incorporate the principles of liberty and independence into the very fabric of our lives and work. It means we will offer eternal vigilance to the fundamental principles upon which America was built.

Liberty has no guarantees or assurances. Each generation must work to preserve, protect, and defend the principles of constitutional government, or else liberty will be lost.
The angel spoke of Christ, declaring, "He is risen." And so He is. And because Christ lives, liberty and freedom may also live. Why? Because "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

HAPPY EASTER!

This column is archived at
http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2009/cbarchive_20090407.html

(c) Chuck Baldwin