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Max Baucus has something to say to gun owners: “Own a gun; lose your coverage!”

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has something to say to gun owners: “Own a gun; lose your coverage!”

Baucus’ socialized health care bill comes up for a Finance Committee vote on Tuesday. We have waited and waited and waited for the shifty Baucus to release legislative language. But he has refused to release anything but a summary — and we will never have a Congressional Budget Office cost assessment based on actual legislation. Even the summary was kept secret for a long time.

But, on the basis of the summary, the Baucus bill (which is still unnumbered) tells us virtually nothing about what kind of policy Americans will be required to purchase under penalty of law — nor the consequences.


It simply says:

• all U.S. citizens and legal residents would be required to purchase coverage through (1) the individual market;


• individuals would be required to report on their federal income tax return the months for which they maintain the required minimum health coverage


• in addition to an extensive list of statutorily mandated coverage, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius would be empowered to “define and update the categories of treatments, items, and services within an insurance plan which would be covered in a policy constituting “required minimum health coverage.

ObamaCare and Gun Control
It is nearly certain that coverage prescribed by the administration will, to control costs, exclude coverage for what it regards as excessively dangerous activities. And, given Sebelius’ well-established antipathy to the Second Amendment — she vetoed concealed carry legislation as governor of Kansas — we presume she will define these dangerous activities to include hunting and self-defense using a firearm. It is even possible that the Obama-prescribed policy could preclude reimbursement of any kind in a household which keeps a loaded firearm for self-defense.

The ObamaCare bill already contains language that will punish Americans who engage in unhealthy behavior by allowing insurers to charge them higher insurance premiums. (What constitutes an unhealthy lifestyle is, of course, to be defined by legislators.) Don’t be surprised if an anti-gun nut like Sebelius uses this line of thinking to impose ObamaCare policies which result in a back-door gun ban on any American who owns “dangerous” firearms.

After all, insurers already (and routinely) drop homeowners from their policies for owning certain types of guns or for refusing to use trigger locks (that is, for keeping their guns ready for self-defense!). While not all insurers practice this anti-gun behavior, Gun Owners of America has documented that some do — Prudential and State Farm being two of the most well-known.

The good news is that because homeowner insurance is private (and is still subject to the free market) you can go to another company if one drops you. But what are you going to do under nationalized ObamaCare when the regulations written by Secretary Sebelius suspend the applicability of your government-mandated policy because of your gun ownership?

All of this is in addition to something that GOA has been warning you about for several months … the certainty that minimum acceptable policies will dump your gun information into a federal database … a certainty that is reinforced by language in the summary providing for a study to “encourage increased meaningful use of electronic health records.”

Remember, the federal government has already denied more than 150,000 military veterans the right to own guns, without their being convicted of a crime or receiving any due process of law. They were denied because of medical information (such as PTSD) that the FBI later determined disqualified these veterans to own guns.

Is this what we need on a national level being applied to every gun owner in America?

Incidentally, failure to comply would subject the average family to $1,500 in fines — and possibly more for a household with older teens. And, although a Schumer amendment purports to exempt Americans from prison sentences for non-purchase of an ObamaPolicy — something which was never at issue — it doesn’t prohibit them from being sent to prison for a year and fined an additional $25,000 under the Internal Revenue Code for non-payment of the initial fines.

Gallup finds a new low of 44% of Americans saying the laws covering firearm sales should be made more strict

PRINCETON, NJ — Gallup finds a new low of 44% of Americans saying the laws covering firearm sales should be made more strict. That is down 5 points in the last year and 34 points from the high of 78% recorded the first time the question was asked, in 1990.

Today, Americans are as likely to say the laws governing gun sales should be kept as they are now (43%) as to say they should be made more strict. Until this year, Gallup had always found a significantly higher percentage advocating stricter laws. At the same time, 12% of Americans believe the laws should be less strict, which is low in an absolute sense but ties the highest Gallup has measured for this response.

These results are based on Gallup's annual Crime Poll, conducted Oct.1-4 this year.

"Compared with views in 2000, each major demographic or attitudinal subgroup has shown a shift toward a more pro-gun stance on the question about whether gun laws should be more strict or less strict."

The poll also shows a new low in the percentage of Americans favoring a ban on handgun possession except by the police and other authorized persons, a question that dates back to 1959. Only 28% now favor such a ban. The high point in support for a handgun-possession ban was 60% in the initial measurement in 1959. Since then, less than a majority has been in favor, and support has been below 40% since December 1993.

The trends on the questions about gun-sale laws and a handgun-possession ban indicate that Americans' attitudes have moved toward being more pro-gun rights. But this is not due to a growth in personal gun ownership, which has held steady around 30% this decade, or to an increase in household gun ownership, which has been steady in the low 40% range since 2000.

Nor are more pro-gun attitudes a specific reaction to the election of a Democratic president, Barack Obama, whose support for gun rights is questioned at times. Though the trends on both the gun-sales and the gun-possession measures have moved in a slightly more pro-gun direction this year compared to last, both trends had been moving in that direction during the latter part of the Bush administration, which strongly supported gun rights.

Rather, Americans as a whole may just be more accepting of gun rights now than in the past. Compared with views in 2000, each major demographic or attitudinal subgroup has shown a shift toward a more pro-gun stance on the question about whether gun laws should be more strict or less strict. (The results are similar on the question of a ban on handgun possession, with nearly every major demographic group less supportive of a ban now than at the start of the decade.)

Even with the change, there are some subgroups among whom a majority continues to favor stricter gun laws, including liberals (67%), Democrats (66%), Easterners (59%), gun non-owners (57%), postgraduates (55%), women (55%), and nonwhites (51%).

The groups least in favor of stricter gun laws are gun owners (20%), Republicans (28%), conservatives (30%), and men (33%).

Bottom Line

Americans continue to trend toward holding attitudes that are more in favor of gun rights, and Gallup today finds new low points in favor of gun control on two separate measures dating back at least two decades. While solidly against a ban on handgun possession, Americans are nonetheless about equally likely to say they favor stricter laws on firearm sales as to say these laws should not change. Still, the current poll marks the first time Gallup has not found a significantly higher proportion of Americans preferring tighter gun-sale regulations.

Survey Methods

Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,013 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Oct. 1-4, 2009. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

450 Mayors from Bloomberg’s Group Petition Obama To Violate the Second Amendment

A new report from a national coalition of mayors urges President Obama to adopt dozens of reforms to help curb gun violence, including steps to crack down on problems at gun shows and the creation of a federal interstate firearms trafficking unit.


The “Blueprint for Federal Action on Illegal Guns,” a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, presents 40 recommendations that “would dramatically improve law enforcement’s ability to keep guns out of the hands of criminals — and, in doing so, save innocent lives.”
The strategies outlined by the Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a bipartisan group of about 450 mayors nationwide, focus on the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The agency, which has been sent a copy of the report, declined to comment.


“Implementing these recommendations would achieve a goal that all participants in the gun debate support: enforcing laws already on the books,” says an accompanying letter signed by the coalition’s co-chairmen, Mayors Thomas M. Menino (D) of Boston and Michael R. Bloomberg (I) of New York.


According to the report, hard work by ATF field agents has “been undermined by congressional restrictions, inadequate resources, and a lack of leadership from federal officials in Washington.”


The proposed changes could be accomplished within existing laws through agency reforms, regulatory moves and better funding, the report said. The strategies grew out of academic and government research, an analysis of firearms prosecutions and talks with government and law enforcement officials.


The mayor’s coalition created this document for policy discussion,” said Jason Post, a spokesman for Bloomberg’s office. There are no plans for public release of the document, which is being distributed to key members of Obama’s administration and agencies affected by the recommendations.


The 51-page document suggests a handful of strategies that would tighten ATF oversight of thousands of gun shows held annually. The study noted that a 2007 inspector general’s probe concluded the “ATF does not have a formal gun show enforcement program.”


ATF agents should have greater discretion to conduct criminal investigations at gun shows identified as sources of firearms later seized in crimes, the report states, noting that “criminal activity endemic to some gun shows goes unchecked.”
Agents at gun shows should “develop undercover integrity tests” to determine whether felons or out-of-state residents are making illegal purchases.


The report also calls for a better approach to crime gun tracing, the process that tracks a seized weapon back to its first retail sale. The ATF lacks the structure or resources to “fully realize its power,” the report says, and information is not regularly shared with field offices, and state and local law enforcement.


To this end, the study wants ATF to be funded to create a new “Office of Tactical Trace Analysis,” which would replace the current crime gun analysis branch.

S Senate has passed a bill forcing Amtrak to allow firearm transportation on their trains.

   Amtrak would lose its federal subsidies if it doesn’t put a system in place by early next year to check and track firearms so that passengers can legally put the weapons in their checked baggage, the Senate voted Wednesday.

   The measure, an amendment to the transportation and housing appropriations bill, passed 68-30.

   The House version of the bill, passed in July, does not include the provision, so further steps would be needed for it to reach President Obama’s desk.

   Amtrak’s current policy prohibits passengers from carrying “any type of gun, firearm, ammunition, explosives or weapon” in carry-on or checked baggage.

   Amtrak spokesman Steve Kulm said firearms had been allowed in checked baggage before the September 11 attacks.

   However, despite the policy change, the company has no uniform system of screening for firearms, Amtrak Chairman Thomas Carper noted in a letter to Sens. Patty Murray and Christopher Bond decrying Wednesday’s congressional mandate. They are the top Democrat and Republican, respectively, on the Appropriations Committee’s transportation subcommittee.

   ”Unlike the airline industry, Amtrak has no system in place for a uniform system of screening for weapons,” Carper wrote. The railroad has no secure loading areas, and trains make multiple stops, he said. Employees also would need intensive training.

   Further, he said, the National Railroad Passenger Corp. (Amtrak) has neither the money nor the time to meet the Senate’s timetable to put such a system in place.

   Carper warned that if Amtrak were to lose federal funds, it would result in the “cessation of all Amtrak service nationwide.”

   According to its Web site, Amtrak has in place “a range of behind-the-scenes and front-line security measures” that include random passenger and carry-on baggage screening; checked baggage screening; K-9 units; onboard security checks; and identification checks.

   ”As part of our security strategy, randomly selected passengers and their baggage, handbags, backpacks or other personal items may be screened or inspected,” it says.

   ”Passengers failing to consent to security procedures will be denied access to trains and refused carriage, and a refund will be offered.”

   The gun measure was sponsored by Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi.

   He introduced the same legislation in August as part of the budget resolution, and it was approved with bipartisan support, but the provision was removed during final House-Senate negotiations.

   ”Under current practices, all of the American domestic airlines permit firearms in their checked luggage. Other American passenger railroads also allow checked firearms,” Wicker said on the Senate floor Wednesday.

   ”Only the federally subsidized Amtrak prohibits law-abiding American citizens from exercising their Second Amendment rights in checked baggage,” he said.

Murray opposed the legislation.

   ”In order to receive any federal funding under this amendment, Amtrak would have six months to build a process for checking and tracking firearms,” she said.

   ”It would have to find the manpower necessary to screen and guard firearms, and it would have to purchase the equipment necessary. Now there is nothing in the underlying appropriations to pay for any of that. So this amendment is going to put a severe burden on them and if they do not comply, Amtrak will shut down.”

   The measure lays out the following guidelines:

• Before checking the bag or boarding the train, the passenger must declare that the firearm or pistol is in his or her bag and is unloaded.
• The firearm or pistol must be carried in a hard-sided container.
• The hard-sided container must be locked, and only the passenger has the combination or key.

On this the Eighth anniversary off the attacks on the world trade centers and pentagon (9/11) just some thoughts

No matter how you feel about the government, current and past president’s, or the war in total, there are a few things you MUST do. Always respect and show reference for the USA troops who are overseas in the war zone. We have an ALL volunteer military. Those men and women are doing what they are ordered to do. (Trust me my brother is in the Army. For I know where I speak.)

We should also remember those who lost their lives in New York, Washington DC, Pennsylvania. Including the pilots, crew, and all of those poor people in the plains. This is a day of remembrance. Please keep all those mentioned above and everyone who has lost their lives fighting on OUR behalf in the middle east, in your thoughts and prayers on this day.

Ninth Circus Court of Appeals is likely to decide whether the Second Amendment’s guarantee of a right to “keep and bear arms”

A federal appeals court on September 24 will hear a high-profile gun rights case that’s a leading candidate to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Ninth Circus Court of Appeals is likely to decide whether the Second Amendment’s guarantee of a right to “keep and bear arms” restricts only the federal government — the current state of affairs — or whether it can be used to strike down intrusive state and local laws too.

A three-judge panel ruled that the Second Amendment does apply to the states. But now a larger Ninth Circuit panel will rehear the case, a procedure reserved only for issues of exceptional importance, which means the earlier decision could be upheld or overruled.

Two other circuits have said the Second Amendment does not apply to the states, a legal term known as “incorporation.” If the Ninth Circuit’s en banc panel continues to disagree with its peers, the Supreme Court almost certainly would step in.

The Ninth Circuit case involves Russell and Sallie Nordyke, who run a gun show business that would like to rent Alameda County’s fairgrounds (the county includes Oakland and is across the bay from San Francisco). After being blocked, they sued. The author of the ordinance in question, then-county supervisor Mary King, actually claimed such shows are nothing but “a place for people to display guns for worship as deities for the collectors who treat them as icons of patriotism.”

The hearing is set for 10 a.m. PT in the federal courthouse at 95 Seventh Street in San Fagcisco.

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) is trying to use homeland security to violate the constitution

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), who sits on the Homeland Security Committee, today called on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and U.S. Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan to restrict the carrying of weapons openly or concealed in or around the areas where the President of the United States and cabinet officials are appearing, following reports, photos, and videos of people carrying guns outside of an Obama town hall meeting in Arizona earlier this week. Norton said that this restriction is particularly necessary in the nation’s capital, where recently filed litigation seeks to overturn D.C. law in order to allow residents and visitors to carry concealed guns in public.

The President, cabinet officials and other top foreign and domestic officials regularly travel in motorcades in the nation’s capital. The risks of public shootings, which threaten homeland security, have been minimized by gun laws in the District that restrict both open and concealed gun carrying in public. After a Norton hearing last session that revealed that a similar bill would have allowed the open carrying of weapons in the District, even the National Rifle Association voluntarily withdrew the dangerous provisions.

Norton said that a reported 10 to 12 people were carrying weapons in Arizona on Tuesday in the vicinity of President Obama’s appearance. “I seek no change in the local laws of other jurisdictions, and ask only respect for gun laws in my own district,” Norton said. “However, it is clear that if the Secret Service can temporarily clear all aircraft from air space when the President is in the vicinity, the agency has the authority to clear guns on the ground that is even closer to the President.”

The Congresswoman said that she hopes that increasingly brazen NRA attempts to nationalize its no-holds barred approach to guns has finally gotten the attention of federal authorities. “The NRA’s most recent actions show that the NRA intends to go national on the Ensign amendment approach, the amendment attached to the Senate version of the D.C. Voting Rights bill that would abolish all gun laws in the District,” Norton said. She cited the recently defeated Thune amendment to permit the carrying of weapons openly as evidence that the NRA is pressing nationwide its view that there should be no local limits on guns in the nation’s capital or elsewhere. “The NRA is using the District as a test case because it is uniquely subject to Congressional dictates. Both in the courts and in Congress, beginning with the violation of D.C.’s home rule right to enact its own gun safety laws, the NRA is on a national gun campaign,” she said. However, the NRA suffered a surprise setback in the defeat of the Thune amendment to the defense authorization bill, which would have allowed gun owners to carry concealed weapons across state lines, violating restrictions in other jurisdictions. A similar but even more radical section in the Ensign amendment would make a unique exception for the nation’s capital to become the only U.S. jurisdiction where people could cross state lines to purchase handguns and bring them back, facilitating gun running by criminals, terrorists or gangs intent on breaching homeland security in the National Capital Region or public peace in neighborhoods.

NRA supports further violations of second amendment by remaining silent!

If the NRA were the gun rights proponents they clam to be they would be up in arms (excuse the pun please) over HR2640.

Ignoring the wishes of grassroots gun owners, and doing the bidding of Sarah Brady, State Rep. Scott Gunderson is still pushing AB70, the bill to expand the National Instant Check System (NICS) in Wisconsin.

The silence by the institutional gun lobby on this dangerous anti-gun bill has been splitting ear drums. NRA-ILA e-mail alerts have not mentioned a peep about this bill, which is being dubbed by WGO the “Veterans Disarmament Act.”

Assembly Bill 70 and Senate Bill 44 would dangerously expand state-level back ground checks to include far-reach medical data.

As mentioned in previous alerts, the federal version of this gun control scheme, HR2640, was passed into law by what most gun owners considered a betrayal of trust by congressional republicans and the NRA last year.

Gun Owners of America (GOA), the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) and Wisconsin Gun Owners, Inc. (WGO) (along with an army of rock-solid state-level gun rights organizations from across the country ) steadfastly opposed the mental health bills on the basis that it would subject gun owners and their rights to arbitrary “diagnosis” by psychiatrists.

It was passed into law and has since become a virtual nightmare for thousands of veterans. Nightmarish stories are already surfacing about gun owners who lost the right to keep and bear arms without due process.

All it takes is one anti-gun government mental health crony to declare you “adjudicated mentally defective” and you lose your guns.

And now state republicans are sneaking this same anti-scheme behind your back in Madison. Last week State Rep. Scott Gunderson — who has never returned WGO’s Candidate Survey —introduced an amendment to the bill, breathing new life into the anti-gun scheme.

Gun owners and NRA members are urged to contact NRA to ask why, “Why the silence?”
and Please report the reson you get to us, here at Guns and Ammo Enthusiast Blog and we will report them all to you.

HR45 rears it’s ugly head AGAIN!

…the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. — Amendment II

Those 14 words, perhaps more than any others in the U.S. Constitution, have inspired discussions, arguments and legal debates for years and years.

Now, legislation introduced in January by Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) and lingering in the House Judiciary Committee has stirred up emotions on both sides of the gun control issue and once again brought these words into the spotlight.

Rush’s bill, the Blair Holt’s Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act (H.R. 45), establishes a federal licensing and registration regime under the direction of the U.S. Attorney General and would make it a criminal act not to register as an owner of a firearm.

The bill will also:

· Establish a federal licensing requirement for ownership of handguns and semiautomatic weapons, not including antiques, with application requirements which include a photograph of the gun owner, fingerprinting of the gun owner, a current address, a completed, written firearms safety test, and private mental health records. These licenses must be renewed every five years;

· Create a federal registration database for handguns and semiautomatics to which every new sale or transfer — including transfers among private individuals — in America must be reported within 14 days;

· Require a background check to be performed in any transfer of guns and provides penalties of up to two years in jail for failure to comply with any licensing or background check requirements.

· Establish penalties of up to 10 years for parents whose children gain access to their firearms unless they meet certain federally-established requirements.

It should be noted there are already federally required background checks for purchasing weapons. A government database of all gun owners or longer waiting periods will not keep criminals from getting their hands on a gun.

Furthermore, this bill does nothing to curb the criminals who would use handguns to commit a crime. Just the opposite — it would turn law-abiding citizens into lawbreakers for overlooking one of many forms or address verification.

Any bill which would require photographing and fingerprinting for simply possessing a firearm flies in the face of our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms.

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees — and as the U.S. Supreme Court definitively ruled in District of Columbia v Heller — the American people have the right to keep and bear arms.

As a member of the National Rifle Association and the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus, I will work with my colleagues in the House of Representatives to promote legislation protecting our constitutional rights and oppose legislation, such as H.R. 45, which restricts such rights.

We need to work harder to ensure the safety of our citizens, but we must do so in a way which protects our Constitutionally-guaranteed rights.

Our country’s founding fathers understood how important the principle of the Second Amendment is in ensuring our basic freedoms. They had faith in the citizens of America. We should have the same faith in our fellow countrymen today.

THE OAS TREATY—BLUEPRIINT FOR DISMANTLING THE SECOND AMENDMENT Administration support for a dangerous international treaty shows its disdain for the Constitution and America’s law-abiding gun owners

The Obama administration’s offensive against the Second Amendment has begun.

As was predicted, the strategy uses international law to create a foundation for repressive and extreme gun control. The mechanism is an international treaty, the “Inter-American Convention against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and Other Related Materials.”

If the plan succeeds, police sales of confiscated firearms would be prohibited, and anyone who reloads ammunition at home would need a federal license. In addition, the treaty would create an international law requirement that almost every American firearm owner be licensed as if he were a manufacturer.

Founded in 1948, the Organization of American States (OAS) includes all of the independent nations of the Western Hemisphere. (Cuba’s participation has been suspended since 1962.) In 1997, President Clinton signed a gun control treaty, which had been negotiated by OAS. Subsequently, neither he nor President George W. Bush sent the treaty to the United States Senate for ratification.

The treaty is commonly known as “CIFTA,” for its Spanish acronym, Convención Interamericana Contra La Fabricación Y El Tráfico Ilícitos De Armas De Fuego, Municiones, Explosivos Y Otros Materiales Relacionados. The document is called a “convention” rather than a “treaty” because “convention” is a term of art for a multilateral treaty created by a multinational organization.

At the OAS meeting in April 2009, President Obama said that he would send CIFTA to the U.S. Senate and urge ratification. The White House claimed that the convention was merely an expression of international goodwill, and that it had been negotiated with the participation of the National Rifle Association.

Both statements were false.

In the United States, it is common for police and sheriffs’ departments to sell confiscated firearms to federally licensed firearm dealers (FFLs). The FFLs then resell the guns to lawful consumers. Of course, when any FFL sells a gun to a customer, the sale must be approved by the National Instant Check System, or its state equivalent.

Police and sheriff sales of confiscated guns would be outlawed by CIFTA which mandates: “State Parties shall adopt the necessary measures to ensure that all firearms, ammunition, explosives, and other related materials seized, confiscated, or forfeited as the result of illicit manufacturing or trafficking do not fall into the hands of private individuals or businesses through auction, sale, or other disposal.”

Another target of CIFTA is reloading. The millions of Americans who reload include competitive target shooters, hunters, trainers who want to craft milder ammunition for beginners and many other hobbyists who enjoy making things themselves and saving money. Due to the present shortage of ammunition, more and more people are taking up reloading—so many that reloading equipment manufacturers are having difficulty keeping their products in stock.

Reloading is entirely lawful in every state, and no state requires a specific permit for those reloading ammunition. CIFTA, however, declares that “illicit manufacturing” is the “manufacture or assembly of firearms, ammunition, explosives, and other related materials” that takes place without “a license from a competent governmental authority of the State Party where the manufacture or assembly takes place.”

Thus, either the federal government or all 50 state governments would have to enact legislation to impose reloading licenses, and to define unlicensed reloading as crime. According to Article IV of CIFTA, “State Parties that have not yet done so shall adopt the necessary legislative or other measures to establish as criminal offenses under their domestic law the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms, ammunition, explosives, and other related materials.”

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) charges $10 per year for a license to manufacture most ammunition. Also under existing law, the premises of firearms and ammunition manufacturers may be inspected without notice once per year by the BATFE, and an unlimited number of times in cases involving a criminal investigation. Thus, anyone who reloads ammunition would be taxed and subject to home inspection by the federal government.

Reloaders are not the only ones who would be required to have a manufacturing license. So would every company or individual that makes any part of a firearm or an accessory. In fact, so would almost every firearm owner in the nation.

CIFTA Article I requires licensing for the manufacture of “other related materials.” These are defined as “any component, part, or replacement part of a firearm, or an accessory which can be attached to a firearm.”

That definition straightforwardly includes all spare firearm parts. It also includes accessories that are attached to firearms, such as scopes, ammunition magazines, sights, recoil pads, bipods and slings.

Current U.S. law requires a license to manufacture a firearm, with a “firearm” being defined as the receiver—no federal license is needed to make other parts of a firearm, such as barrels or stocks.

But CIFTA’s plain language requires federal licensing of the manufacturers and sellers of barrels, stocks, screws, springs and everything else that is used to make firearms.

Likewise, the manufacture of all accessories—such as scopes, sights, lasers, slings, bipods and so on—would have to be licensed.

In the United States, the manufacture of a firearm or ammunition for one’s personal use does not require a license, since the licensing requirements apply to persons who “engage in the business” by engaging in repeated transactions for profit. (18 U.S. Code sect. 923(a).) Yet CIFTA would require licensing for everyone.

Many, perhaps most, firearm owners occasionally tinker with their guns. They might replace a worn-out spring, or install a better barrel. Or they might add accessories such as a scope, a laser aiming device, a recoil pad or a sling. All of these simple activities would require a government license. The CIFTA definition of “Illicit manufacturing” is “the manufacture or assembly of firearms, ammunition, explosives, and other related materials.” (Emphasis added.)

Even if putting an attachment on a firearm were not considered in itself to be “assembly,” the addition of most components necessarily requires some assembly; for example, scope rings consist of several pieces that must be assembled. Replacing one grip with another requires, at the least, the use of screws.

Because the definition of “manufacturing” is so broad, nearly all gun owners would eventually be required to obtain a manufacturing license.

CIFTA mandates that “State Parties that have not yet done so shall adopt the necessary legislative or other measures to establish as criminal offenses under their domestic law the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms, ammunition, explosives, and other related materials … the criminal offenses established pursuant to the foregoing paragraph shall include participation in, association or conspiracy to commit, attempts to commit, and aiding, abetting, facilitating, and counseling the commission of said offenses.”

Yet the preamble of CIFTA says: “this Convention does not commit State Parties to enact legislation or regulations pertaining to firearms ownership, possession, or trade of a wholly domestic character.”

Does the preamble negate the comprehensive licensing system that CIFTA demands? Not really. The exemptions are for “ownership, possession, or trade.” There is no exemption for “manufacturing.” As detailed above, “manufacturing” is defined broadly enough as to include the home manufacture of ammunition, as well as repair of one’s own firearm, or assembling an accessory for attachment to one’s firearm.

Notably, even if CIFTA were read so that the “does not commit” language also pertained to manufacturing, there is nothing that prevents a state party from choosing to enact manufacturing regulations.

The nations that have ratified CIFTA so far have not necessarily fully implemented the literal requirements of language regarding firearms and related material manufacturing. It is hardly unusual for nations to make a show of ratifying a treaty, but then do little to carry out the treaty’s requirements. However, in a culture such as the United States, with a strong commitment to the rule of law, CIFTA might have greater practical effect.

If ratified by the Senate, CIFTA would become the law of the land. Would the BATFE then be empowered to write regulations implementing the convention—without waiting for Congress to pass a new statute?

If a treaty is “self-executing,” then it is an independent source of authority for domestic regulations. By traditional views of international law, CIFTA is not self-executing, since its language anticipates that ratifying governments will have to enact future laws to comply with CIFTA.

On the other hand, CIFTA does not explicitly declare itself to be non-self-executing. Harold Koh, who has been nominated as legal adviser to the U.S. Department of State, has challenged the doctrine of “so-called self-executing treaties” and argues that the Supreme Court decisions creating the doctrine are incorrect. (100 Yale Law Journal, pages 2360-61, 2383-84; see also 35 University of California at Davis Law Review, page 1111 n. 114; 35 Houston Law Review, page 666.)

Rather, Koh writes, legislatures “should ratify treaties with a presumption that they are self-executing.” Further, domestic courts should “construe domestic statutes consistently with international law” and “should employ international human rights norms to guide interpretation of domestic constitutional norms.” (106 Yale Law Journal, page 2658 n. 297.) As detailed in last month’s issue of America’s 1st Freedom, Koh considers stringent gun control to be a very important international human right (July 2009, p. 32).

In Koh’s view, even when Congress has not created a statute to implement a treaty, courts should recognize a right of private plaintiffs to bring lawsuits under the treaty. (100 Yale Law Journal, pages 2383-84.) Thus, Koh and his allies could argue that Senate ratification of CIFTA trumps the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which outlaws abusive lawsuits against gun manufacturers and stores.

Suppose that the Senate, when ratifying CIFTA, added specific reservations declaring that CIFTA is not self-executing, that CIFTA authorizes no additional regulations and that CIFTA does not authorize any new lawsuits. The United States executive branch, under Koh’s guidance, might ignore the reservations. When the Senate added a reservation to another treaty, Koh wrote, “Many scholars question persuasively whether the United States declaration has either domestic or international legal effect.” (111 Harvard Law Review, pages 1828-29 n. 24.)

Ultimately, the question of whether BATFE can promulgate regulations under CIFTA might be decided in court cases. One way for a court to resolve the issue would be to acknowledge that federal statutes already authorized regulation of manufacturing, and that CIFTA, as the latter-enacted law, simply expanded the definition of manufacturing so that the licensing requirement now applies to persons who are not engaged in the firearm business, and to manufacture or assembly of firearms attachments and spare parts.

It is not hard to foresee Obama-appointed federal judges upholding massive new BATFE gun control regulations, especially when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the State Department’s top legal adviser (Harold Koh) insist to the courts that the expanded federal regulations are necessary for the United States to comply with its international law obligations.

CIFTA does not specifically require gun registration. But once you impose manufacturing licenses, registration comes along for the ride. Existing federal regulations for manufacturers of firearms and ammunition require that manufacturers keep records of all products they produce, and these records must be available for government inspection.

Thus, those who reload ammunition would have to keep records of every round they made, and gun owners would have to keep a record of everything they “assembled” (e.g., putting a scope on a rifle). These records would then be open to BATFE inspection.

Earlier this year, U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., (formerly a gun criminal for the terrorist group The Black Panthers), introduced H.R. 45, to set up a national licensing and registration system for handguns and for self-loading long guns. As implemented under the direction of President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton and State Department legal adviser Koh, CIFTA could go even further—it also covers ammunition reloading as well as long guns that are not semi-automatic.

Further, CIFTA could be used to impose national licensing, registration and taxation of gun owners without members of Congress having to cast a vote that explicitly creates such laws. Indeed, because treaties need to be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate, yet need no approval from the House of Representatives, the House could be cut out of the law-making process altogether.