Family Research Council president Tony Perkins yesterday hosted Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) who immediately started spreading conspiracy theories about the United Nations.
Fleming insisted that the recently approved global UN Arms Trade Treaty, which will restrict the sale of arms to countries and groups that commit war crimes and other atrocities and has been the subject of several discredited right-wing attacks, is an attempt by the left to weaken and ultimately “repeal” the Second Amendment.
The Republican congressman concluded by speculating that the UN may make it illegal for parents to spank their children.
Fleming: In the case of the UN small arms treaty what that means is that if we enter into a treaty with one or more nations that in some way controls firearms, protective arms, handguns, something like that, if it’s ratified by the Senate then that has the same effect as an amendment to the Constitution. So that would be a way that liberals could literally change the Second Amendment. I think as you well know, although it’s not going to have a full effect as part of the ‘votorama’ the other day the Senate had in their vote for their budget, a vote on an up-or-down on the acceptance of, or voting against in effect in their opinion, at least a resolution if you will, on the the acceptance of such a treaty, and Sen. Mary Landrieu from Louisiana actually voted that we should move forward on such a small arms treaty. This is a dangerous thing when it comes to the Second Amendment. People need to understand that there is an end-run around the Second Amendment that is available to the Senate and I do think President Obama and others do support this.
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Perkins: We’re talking here for just a moment about the UN’s Small Arms Treaty and as he pointed out, an end-run around Congress on the Second Amendment through the Congress. This is a very real possibility in my opinion congressman because it looks like the efforts to get legislation through Congress, especially through the House, that would severely restrict gun ownership and attack the Second Amendment is unlikely to happen, so what’s the next best thing for the Obama administration? Pursuing a treaty like this.
Fleming: Well if for instance through the UN and with an agreement with other countries, we all come together and we say, you know what we as a group of countries, both inside and outside of our borders, are going to control the handling the use and access to handguns, for instance, then if we sign onto that treaty and it’s ratified by the Senate—the House doesn’t even have to vote on it—it’s ratified by the Senate and signed onto by the President, it is firm law. A simple passage of a law or a repeal of law by Congress itself can’t undo that is my understanding. So we wouldn’t have to have a repeal of the Second Amendment, we could just simply alter it or put into effect what is essentially a repeal of it. That is not the only thing. There’s another issue just to show you how broad scope this is on how we deal with our children and what control we have of our children as parents and how we may define child abuse and the responsibility of the state. That could potentially be up for a ratification of a treaty with other nations. So that if you for instance spanked your child, you could be in violation of a UN treaty and a law created as such.
