Shootout With Terrorists In MI. !

[twyacht]

Didn't catch this on major news networks, maybe the DRTV members in Michigan can provide more info.

Scary bunch. Homegrown Terrorists.

http://townhall.com/columnists/RobertKnight/2009/10/30/dearborn_shoot-out_opens_a_window_into_homegrown_terror&Comments=true

Dearborn Shoot-Out Opens a Window into Homegrown Terror

 Luqman Ameen Abdullah, who was the Imam of the Masjid Al-Haqq mosque in Detroit, died in a shoot-out on Wednesday after firing on FBI agents during a raid in Dearborn, Michigan. Another seven Muslims were apprehended and various weapons seized.

“We're not any fake terrorists, we're the real terrorists,” Abdullah (aka Christopher Thomas) once bragged to an undercover informant, according to an FBI affidavit.

Abdullah, 53, was a disciple of none other than H. Rap Brown. If you ever wondered what had become of the‘60s Black Panther leader, well, he converted to Islam while in prison in the 1970s. And he apparently has not changed his mind about what he’d like to do to America.

Famous for saying, “Violence is necessary. It’s as American as cherry pie,” he goes by the moniker Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, and runs a Sunni group called Ummah (“community”). The Black Muslim organization’s goal is to establish an Islamic regime with Sharia Law within the United States. Brown is doing this from his prison cell at the ADX Florence supermax federal prison in Colorado, where he’s serving a state-imposed sentence for shooting two black police officers in Fulton County, Georgia in 2000.

In Wednesday’s raid, the agents targeted a Dearborn warehouse and two Detroit homes after a two-year investigation of the Ummah offshoot. A total of 11 Muslims (three were still at large) were charged with various conspiracy felonies involving stolen goods and firearms. Speaking of conspiracies, Abdullah is on tape saying that the FBI was behind Timothy McVeigh’s 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. The 43-page criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and which contains eyewitness accounts, says that boys as young as 7 were beaten “severely” (p. 24) and that Abdullah encouraged his followers to “pick up guns and do something.” (p. 3) He also said, “If they are coming to get me, I’ll just strap a bomb on and blow up everybody.” (p. 10) He also said while watching a TV show featuring a nuclear bomb that he would like to acquire a “little bomb” and target Washington, D.C. (page 18).

Well, that kind of talk, except for the fact that Washington is about 60 percent African-American, should make a proud man out of Al-Brown, who once said, “We must wage guerrilla warfare on the honky white man” and, “If America doesn't come around, then black people are going to burn it down.” The latter threat was made in Cambridge, Maryland, where fiery riots erupted shortly thereafter in July, 1967, fulfilling his prophecy.

On the same day as the Michigan raids, CAIR put out an unrelated editorial “Islamophobia Machine Targets American Muslims,”

******

Oh, yeah, that's it, us honky's are the racists.  This guy (Brown), is still running this group from the Supermax Prison in CO.

Scratch one Imam off the list, glad the FBI were better shots.

Funny, I'm kinda a news hound and I didn't catch this on the major outlets.. Wonder Why it was such a low profile story.

I figure if this was a white supremacy group, or some "militia" it would still be getting coverage.

[Hazcat]

November 14, 2009 |  3:38 am

How low will the new American president go for the world's royalty?

This photo will get Democrat President Obama a lot of approving nods in Japan this weekend, especially among the older generation of Japanese who still pay attention to the royal family living in its downtown castle. Very low bows like this are a sign of great respect and deference to a superior.

To some in the United States, however, an upright handshake might have looked better. Remember Michelle Obama casually patting Britain's Queen Elizabeth on the back during their Buckingham Palace visit? America's royalty tends to make movies and get bad reviews and lots of money as a sign of respect.

Obama could receive some frowns back home as he did for his not-quite-this-low-or-maybe-about-the-same-bow to the Saudi king not so long ago.


Akihito, who turns 76 next month, is the eldest son and fifth child of Emperor Showa, the name given to an emperor and his reign after his death.

Emperor Showa is better known abroad by the life name of Hirohito. He became emperor in 1925 and died in 1989, the longest historically-known rule of the nation's 125 emperors.

Hirohito presided over his nation's growth from an undeveloped agrarian economy into the expansionist military power and ally of Nazi Germany of the 1930's.

And, later, Japan became a global economic giant. Hirohito, along with Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who authorized the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, were much reviled abroad during World War II.

Historically, debate has simmered over how much of a political puppet Hirohito was to the country's military before and during the war.

Even after Democrat President Harry Truman ordered the two atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the summer of 1945, there were strong forces within Japan that wanted to continue to fight the Americans in the spirit of kamikaze suicide pilots.

But Akihito's father went on national radio, the first time his subjects had ever heard Hirohito's voice, and without using the inflammatory word "surrender," pronounced that the country must "accept the unacceptable." It did.


As the conquering Allied general and then presiding officer of the U.S. occupation, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, decided to allow Japan to keep its emperor as a ceremonial unifying institution within a nascent democracy.

Tojo, on the other hand, was hanged.

MacArthur treated Emperor Hirohito respectfully but, as his body language in this black and white postwar photo demonstrates, was not particularly deferential.

(But then MacArthur was not known as a particularly deferential person, as Truman discovered just before firing him later. But that's another war.)

Akihito was born during Japan's conquering of China and was evacuated during the devastating American fire-bombing of Tokyo, which was built largely of wood in those days.

The future emperor learned English during the U.S. occupation, but, inexplicably, his father ordered that his oldest boy not receive an Army commission as previous imperial heirs always had.

Akihito assumed the throne on Jan. 7, 1989. Within weeks he began a series of formal expressions of remorse to Asian countries for Japan's actions during his father's reign. In 2003, he underwent surgery for prostate cancer.

In 1959, Akihito married Michiko Shoda, the first commoner allowed to enter the Japanese royal family. That was two years before the birth of Akihito's future presidential guest, Barack Obama.

Joe Biden was already 17 by then. But he wasn't a senator.

-- Andrew Malcolm

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/11/obama-emperor-akihito-japan.html

Photo at link

[Badgersmilk]

With luck everybody here has a few.  We were presented with an opportunity to use ours earlier today, and I thought I'd share a few very basic things we learned. 

Have your kit divided into two sections.  Emergency, and non-emergency.  The emergency side should have only a few TRUE emergency supplies in it so when everybody is in a huge panic they don't get lost in junk like little specialized bandages, medicines, and such.  I'm thinking all that's needed would be scissors, Big (5"X9" or so) absorbent pads to stop bleeding, Neosporin, some smaller non-stick pads for once bleeding slows, and a good quality roll of medical tape.  DON'T overcomplicated it!

The non-emergency side could contain as much as you care to stock in each kit.  Stuff like eye wash, finger splints, motrin and the like, band-aids, so on...  Stuff that you won't be in a complete panic looking for.

Make sure however many kits you have, THEIR ALL THE SAME!  Having half a dozen different kits causes HUGE confusion when blood is pouring out of somebody!  Everybody in your family has a good idea what's in there, and good first aid skills for using the stuff to.  Not just you.

This all came up fresh as a subject for us today when I was cleaning a folding knife I keep very, very sharp and had a little slip.  Cut right down the middle of my thumb, and went most of the way through it.  I made it to the bathroom sink before soaking everything with blood, but couldn't leave the sink once there without making the house look like a murder scene.  My daughter was the only one there at the time to help, so we learned a lot about how to be better prepared for this kind of thing!  Like antibiotic ointment that expired in 2007 REALLY STINGS!!!   

There's a lot more i could share, but am typing this handicapped.   

Most important of all.  If you haven't gone through your kits lately.  DO IT!  And make sure others in your family do it with you.  You may have shown them things a year ago that are now long since forgotten. 

Have a safe, happy holiday!  Check those first aid kits over! 

[philw]

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2009/s2781993.htm

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/news/audio/twt/200912/20091229-SS-blackmarket-guns.mp3

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Hello, I'm Elizabeth Jackson and you're listening to a current affairs special.

Hundreds of illegal guns have been seized in Australia recently in a police crackdown on organised criminal groups such as bikie gangs. The confiscated guns range from rifles to pistols.

Just where are the guns coming from? Police can't say for sure but there are several likely sources.

Brendan Trembath prepared this report.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Police wrap up a raid in the New South Wales southern highlands. Twenty-five seized guns are put in brown paper bags and taken away as evidence.

A reputed member of an outlaw motorcycle gang is charged with firearms offences.

Illegal guns are being seized frequently as Australian police turn up the heat on various groups.

From an office in Sydney's west Detective Superintendent Arthur Katsogiannis runs the Firearms and Organised Crime Squad.

ARTHUR KATSOGIANNIS: In the last year or two we've had quite an impact. We've had four different strike forces which have worked both covertly and overtly targeting some individuals who were selling and manufacturing illegal firearms.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: He says more than 150 firearms were seized, including an AK-47 assault rifle - the first one seized in the state.

The AK-47 is used by insurgents around the world. Osama Bin Laden is seen with one in his video warnings to the West. Police intelligence suggests that on Australia's black market an AK-47 might sell for up to $20,000.

Twenty-nine of all the guns recently seized by Detective Superintendent Katsogiannis' squad were handguns.

ARTHUR KATSOGIANNIS: Gun crime is a blight upon our society and unfortunately you know there's individuals out there, a minority that may want to use them to commit criminal offences. But that's what we get paid to do and that's where we get our satisfaction, to ensure that those guns are taken off the street.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: This senior detective can't say for sure where seized guns are coming from. But one likely source is thefts from legitimate gun owners.

ARTHUR KATSOGIANNIS: Just over 400 firearms stolen a year as a result of break, enter and steals. Half of these stolen firearms, a result of these particular incidents, happen because of a lack of compliance on the part of the licence holders.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Registered gun owners are supposed to store guns securely in a sturdy safe or risk a fine and the loss of their licence.

The Federal Government says there are about 2.5 million registered firearms in Australia. They belong to more than 700,000 individual licence holders.

Guns circulating on the Australian black market could also be coming from another source. They were bought legally before the laws changed.

After the Port Arthur massacre in1996 self-loading rifles and pump-action shotguns were banned. The Federal Government helped organise a national buyback of more than 700,000 such guns at cost of close to $300 million. But it's not known how many were not surrendered and are still out there somewhere.

Detective Superintendent Katsogiannis again:

ARTHUR KATSOGIANNIS: We are unable to trace them, whether they've gone out to the black market or otherwise, I can't speculate on that. What I can say is that we in the New South Wales Police with our law enforcement colleagues are doing everything we can to locate any illegal firearms.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: From time to time Australia's police forces declare amnesties to encourage people to turn in unregistered guns with no questions asked.

The New South Wales Police Force announced an amnesty in March. Over 4,000 firearms were surrendered and destroyed.

ARTHUR KATSOGIANNIS: Those weapons will never be used again for any type of activity, whether it be sports shooting or criminal activity.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: But what if for every gun seized or surrendered locally another one was slipping into the country undetected.

Detective Superintendent Katsogiannis has heard the talk about guns smuggled in from overseas but he sees little evidence to support it.

ARTHUR KATSOGIANNIS: There's always a possibility that some may come through undetected but we believe from the checks that are being done from our law enforcement colleagues that that's minimal.

Even in relation to parts which may be brought in from overseas where someone may use those parts to manufacture firearms, I know that in meetings that I've had with our both international and national law enforcement colleagues that a lot of those are picked up when they're brought here.

Because one of the main priorities for obviously for our law enforcement people in Australia is that both firearms are drugs are in that category one status where all available attempts are made to ensure nothing gets into the country illegally.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Sydney's Port Botany, one of Australia's busiest ports. A heavy duty forklift darts between stacks of shipping containers.

The containers come from all over the world and there's a never ending line of them coming and going. Ninety-nine per cent of Australia's international trade moves by sea.

One of the country's main gun groups suggests illegal firearms are slipping through ports such as Port Botany.

Tim Bannister from the Sporting Shooters' Association of Australia:

TIM BANNISTER: You've got to consider that less than one per cent of all cargo is ever examined. That amount of examination according to Senate Estimates is now dropping by another 20 per cent.

So there is the possibility that firearms and you know other contraband can make its way onto our shores.

One other area we're very concerned about is international crew, whether it be by port, by plane - are they examined? Can they walk from their ship onto our shores with a duffel bag with goodness knows what in it and sell whatever they do?

Now you've got to put this in a context that some of those overseas, boating crew, are paid a pittance. You would earn more at Subway. For them to walk into Kings Cross or Perth of Fremantle or Whyalla, with contraband they are making a huge amount of money if they can get away with it.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: The Sporting Shooters' Association of Australia was established just after World War II to promote shooting sports and protect gun owners' interests.

(Sound of gun firing)

Today the organisation boasts more than 100,000 members.

TIM BANNISTER: We ourselves have promoted for some time a campaign called Secure Your Guns Secure Your Sport which actually has been operating for six to seven years and has received bouquets from the Institute of Criminology from the current Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor.

We have encouraged our members to not only secure their guns but to secure them in perhaps more expensive safes than what they otherwise would.

We have helped there by providing sponsorship or vouchers up to the value of $100. We've done that with the cooperation of the firearms industry.

At the end of the day we feel comfortable that our members are doing the right thing. We will do this. We will do the right thing. But we ask the police, we ask the legislators to look at where the real problem is; and that is those who use firearms for criminal purposes.

They are not registered firearms and they are not licensed people. They got those firearms from the grey market or the black market. A tiny percentage, a quarter of a quarter of a quarter of a per cent came from a licensed shooter or a security guard or a policeman.

It is evident by all statistics, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Institute of Criminology statistics that that is the problem and that's where the police resources need to be.

The police resources spent to knock on the doors of licensed shooters, to inspect the premises of licensed shooters is a waste of time. It should be spent on those who we know are out there, that they know are out there and must be prosecuted.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: How can you though endorse this concept of safe storage but not have any oversight of it? If people want to go around and check on people's gun cabinets what's the harm in that?

TIM BANNISTER: I do know a lot of police and I've met with many police from firearm registries but there is still often a culture of the public is a criminal in waiting, a potential criminal.

It has been boasted to me by - and I won't say which state - by a former chief inspector of a firearms registry that although they may not find something wrong there they will keep on looking and try and find something wrong.

It's a little bit like having your car pulled over and someone trying to find something wrong. It is the wrong attitude.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: The Australian Greens party has a problem with guns in private hands and doesn't mind saying so. It makes an exception for elite athletes. The party leader Bob Brown has long campaigned for a ban on handguns, especially semi-automatics which fire one shot with each pull of the trigger.

But Senator Brown calls these guns something different, much to the annoyance of many gun owners.

BOB BROWN: I'm very concerned about them because it's permitted for automatic handguns - these are essentially hand held machine guns - to be on the market in Australia. And thousands each year fall into criminal hands through robberies, both of gun shops and private collections.

And they have been used in mass murder overseas. We saw a whole schoolroom of young children shot down in Scotland last decade by a man wielding an automatic handgun. We've seen recent murders, mass murders in the United States.

I cannot think of any justification for these guns being in civilian hands and available through misadventure or crime to criminal outlets in Australia.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: What do you mean by an automatic handgun? What's that?

BOB BROWN: I simply mean it's a handgun that you can keep pulling the trigger because it's got more than one bullet there and keep shooting.

Now, most people think of pistols or handguns as being one-shot machines. They're not. And that means that as in the case in Scotland where 16 young children were shot, one after the other by a man wielding one of these guns - they should not be available in the public arena in Australia.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: But by using an imprecise term like automatic handgun the sporting shooters say you don't know what you're talking about.

BOB BROWN: Well I do exactly know what I'm talking about. Now sporting shooters, let's confine that. There are very, very small numbers of dedicated people who are looking at the Olympics and you can make exceptions for those.

But when it comes to the risk of these guns which can be repeatedly used to shoot people if they're in the wrong hand, being more widely available so that people on some days can have fun, I don't think it's worth the risk.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: But you don't get to elite Olympic competition overnight. You have to start somewhere.

BOB BROWN: Well let me just say again: look at the risk. We inevitably, down the line, with the passage of time will see another mass murder with these weapons.

We took out of the public arena the semi-automatic long rifles but at the same time we did not clean up the potential for a disaster coming out of the use of semi-automatic repeat shot small weapons, handguns. We should follow suit. We should put greater curbs on them.

You can't eliminate them. There are special circumstances in which they should be used. But at the moment as we know there are thousands of these circulating in the wider community – not in, I'm not talking about the sport shooters or the security agencies, I'm talking about in the wider community - because we didn't restrict them and we haven't restricted them strongly enough.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: How concerned are you that numbers of these weapons are coming in from overseas because we don't check all of the cargo that comes into Australia?

BOB BROWN: Well there's a big concern there and the other concern is that the United States has been the recalcitrant. It's a big producer in signing international agreements to cut the use and the export and the global trade in these weapons.

But you know, they are being, it's not just coming from imported weapons but it's from the ability of weapons to go into the wrong hands. They're very valued by people whose intents is criminal.

And they're being lost out of gun collections and out of gun shops and private collections throughout the years and we know there's thousands of them in circulation. And we need to work strongly to stop that to make this society a much safer place.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: To stop these guns falling into the wrong hands what would the Greens like to see by way of changes?

BOB BROWN: We'd like to see legislation which prohibited the sale and resale of these semi-automatic pistols and short guns. And you can build into that the rare exception where there is a legitimate use.

At the moment it's far too, that restriction is far too loose.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: In 2007 one man gained a surprising insight into Australia's firearms black market. While drinking in a pub at Arncliffe in Sydney's south someone he'd never seen before offered to sell him a semi-automatic pistol straight out of the box.

MALE: He had it right there and it had clips, two clips. It was obviously brand new.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: This man no longer lives in New South Wales but still he does not want his name used.

MALE: This guy just did not know me at all. But it was real...

BRENDAN TREMBATH: How do you know it wasn't a replica pistol?

MALE: Oh because I checked the slide and I checked the barrel. It wasn't a replica at all. It was a fully functioning pistol.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Knowing this, what happened to you, what concern does it raise in your mind about gun control in the community?

MALE: This was a brand new weapon and it was a genuine Glock. I know they have a lot of Chinese knock-offs of them. This was a genuine Glock. They're a very recognisable pistol, you know, a big boxy plastic thing you know.

Are they so plentiful that a guy could just come up and try and sell it to me in a pub?

BRENDAN TREMBATH: He was drinking with old mates he grew up with in New Zealand. Over time they followed different paths. He says the friends joined a notorious bikie gang but he didn't.

But the suspicion is the man selling the gun assumed he was in a gang too. Despite what he saw he did not go to the police.

MALE: No I didn't do anything with it. I just went, wow, that's incredible.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: This man's account cannot be independently verified. But he wouldn't be the first person to claim that guns are sold in pubs in Australia's most populous city.

The illegal gun trade is an enduring one. Graham "Abo" Henry was in the thick of it for decades.

GRAHAM "ABO" HENRY: I had hundreds of them; hundreds of guns over the years. We had different things, especially Neddy Smith and myself when I started to run with Ned Smith later on in my life from 1977 onwards.

And we had a great deal in weaponry in those days from, you know machine guns, the old Thompson machine guns to Armalites to Schmeiser machine guns. Things that in the night time if you fired them they'd be able to see from a mile away because of the flames that used to come out of them.

We had everything mate. Everything you could possibly want.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Those are all quite large. What did you carry around with you?

GRAHAM "ABO" HENRY: We always had little guns, always carried 32 Snubnose or I had a 45 British Bulldog I always carried, I carried in the bum bag that I got sitting here with me now.

Because it was small and concealable and you know didn't stand out like dogs' balls virtually, you know. So they were the sort of things that we'd carry.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: He won't name any names but is prepared to say where he used to get his guns.

GRAHAM "ABO" HENRY: The guns came from all sorts of little things. You might buy them in the pub. You might you know some might come from seamen who come from overseas on shipping liners.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Like any market the sale price depended on supply and demand.

GRAHAM "ABO" HENRY: Oh probably $400 for a good hand gun, $400, $500. I think the most I ever paid for one was $2,000. You know you could get $5,000 for them every day of the week you know.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: He and Arthur "Neddy" Smith were armed and dangerous, staging robberies and dealing in drugs with the apparent approval of corrupt police.

GRAHAM "ABO" HENRY: Neddy Smith you know was protected by the police and had a green light and so that's what our gang had. It had a green light. Ned was the alleged big ring leader, of which he was. He was the bloke who had the green light in the first place.

And you know I ran off him. I put the gang together and then we ran from there.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Do you have any regrets about any regular people you might have had to threaten or scare in the course of you know being an armed bandit or any other crimes you committed?

GRAHAM "ABO" HENRY: I can't say that I don't feel sorry for people who I guess were on the receiving end of it. But, you know, do I have any regrets about it? No mate. It was just the lifestyle I led and it's just the way the world was mate.

You know, I don't really have any regrets about anything I've ever done because you know, and especially to other criminals or anything like that because they all knew the rules and all played by the same rules as I did. And if they broke them they suffered their consequences.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Their exploits were dramatised in the 1995 ABC mini-series Blue Murder. Peter Phelps played Graham Henry.

(Excerpt from TV drama series)

PETER PHELPS (playing Graham Henry): Can't sit here doing nothing, waiting for something to happen. You know me old son, I'm rearing to go.

(End of excerpt)

BRENDAN TREMBATH: The real Graham Henry lives a less dramatic life now since his release from jail in 1997. The 58-year-old lives on the coast. As he sits on a bench by the water I asked him if much would have changed from the gun trade he used to know.

GRAHAM "ABO" HENRY: I think a great deal has changed mate. The whole culture has changed. It's you know there's no organised crime as such you know. I mean look when I say organised crime there's people out there that organise crimes.

But organised crime to me and always has been that there's got to be corruption. And I don't just mean police. You've got to have police, you've got to have politicians, you've got to have judges and magistrates and prosecutors.

If you don't have that then you're not playing organised crime, you know. And it's all those wheels that come together that make it run around like the well oiled machine that is mate. You know so it's, certainly today there's nothing like that.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: The Sydney identity Graham Henry ending that report from Brendan Trembath. And you've been listening to a current affairs special.

[fightingquaker13]

I have a late sixties S@W .38. The gun is in like new condition. It is not (obviously) rated for +P rounds. The question is this. Can I safely load these for SD? I don't intend to target shoot with them. I doubt I'll fire more than six, just to make sure they hit where I'm aiming. They would just ride in the cylinder in case I have to use it (as opposed to my Glock) in an SD situation. Is this ok safety wise or could it damage the pistol?
FQ13

[Sponsor]

[gman]

I received a frantic email this morning about how this is the beginning of the end, you know the kind I speak of.  I did some looking around and this appears to be from October, no date appears on the Reuters website.  I found a post on a blog from December 23 2009, see link and quote below.

Does anyone know if this stuff is current, or has has it flown under the radar of the gun culture?

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE59E0Q920091015

The decision, announced in a statement released by the U.S. State Department, overturns the position of former President George W. Bush's administration, which had opposed such a treaty on the grounds that national controls were better.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States would support the talks as long as the negotiating forum, the so-called Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty, "operates under the rules of consensus decision-making."

"Consensus is needed to ensure the widest possible support for the Treaty and to avoid loopholes in the Treaty that can be exploited by those wishing to export arms irresponsibly," Clinton said in a written statement.

While praising the Obama administration's decision to overturn the Bush-era policy and to proceed with negotiations to regulate conventional arms sales, some groups criticized the U.S. insistence that decisions on the treaty be unanimous.

"The shift in position by the world's biggest arms exporter is a major breakthrough in launching formal negotiations at the United Nations in order to prevent irresponsible arms transfers," Amnesty International and Oxfam International said in a joint statement.

However, they said insisting that decisions on the treaty be made by consensus "could fatally weaken a final deal."

"Governments must resist US demands to give any single state the power to veto the treaty as this could hold the process hostage during the course of negotiations. We call on all governments to reject such a veto clause," said Oxfam International's policy adviser Debbie Hillier.

The proposed legally binding treaty would tighten regulation of, and set international standards for, the import, export and transfer of conventional weapons.

Supporters say it would give worldwide coverage to close gaps in existing regional and national arms export control systems that allow weapons to pass onto the illicit market.

Nations would remain in charge of their arms export control arrangements but would be legally obliged to assess each export against criteria agreed under the treaty. Governments would have to authorize transfers in writing and in advance.

The main opponent of the treaty in the past was the U.S. Bush administration, which said national controls were better. Last year, the United States accounted for more than two-thirds of some $55.2 billion in global arms transfer deals.

Arms exporters China, Russia and Israel abstained last year in a U.N. vote on the issue.

The proposed treaty is opposed by conservative U.S. think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, which said last month that it would not restrict the access of "dictators and terrorists" to arms but would be used to reduce the ability of democracies such as Israel to defend their people.

The U.S. lobbying group the National Rifle Association has also opposed the treaty.

A resolution before the U.N. General Assembly is sponsored by seven nations including major arms exporter Britain. It calls for preparatory meetings in 2010 and 2011 for a conference to negotiate a treaty in 2012.

 


http://www.therepublicantemple.com/2009/12/23/hillary-clinton-commits-to-un-small-arms-treaty/

With willing one-world accomplices in Washington, D.C., gun-grabbers around the globe believe they have it made.

In fact, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just announced the Obama Administration would be working hand in glove with the UN to pass a new “Small Arms Treaty.”

Disguised as legislation to help in the fight against “terrorism,” “insurgency” and “international crime syndicates,” the UN Small Arms Treaty is nothing more than a massive, GLOBAL gun control scheme.

Ultimately, the UN’s Small Arms Treaty is designed to register, ban and CONFISCATE firearms owned by private citizens like YOU.

That’s why it’s vital you sign special petition I’ve made up for your signature that DEMANDS your U.S. Senators vote AGAINST ratification of the UN’s “Small Arms Treaty!”

So far, the gun-grabbers have successfully kept the exact wording of their new scheme under wraps.

But looking at previous versions of the UN “Small Arms Treaty,” you and I can get a good idea of what’s likely in the works.

If passed by the UN and ratified by the U.S. Senate, the UN “Small Arms Treaty” would almost certainly FORCE national governments to:

Enact tougher licensing requirements, making law-abiding citizens cut through even more bureaucratic red tape just to own a firearm legally.
CONFISCATE and DESTROY ALL “unauthorized” civilian firearms (all firearms owned by the government are excluded, of course)
BAN the trade, sale and private ownership of ALL semi-automatic weapons
Create an INTERNATIONAL gun registry, setting the stage for full-scale gun CONFISCATION.
You see, this is NOT a fight we can afford to lose.

Ever since it’s founding almost 65 years ago, the United Nations has been hell-bent on bringing the United States to its knees.

To the petty dictators and one-worlders who control the UN, the U.S. isn’t a “shining city on a hill” — it’s an affront to their grand totalitarian designs for the globe.

These anti-gun globalists know that so long as Americans remain free to make our own decisions without being bossed around by big government bureaucrats, they’ll NEVER be able to seize the worldwide oppressive power they crave.

And the UN’s apologists also know the most effective way to finally strip you and me of ALL our freedoms would be to DESTROY our gun rights.

And you and I know good and well how Germany, Great Britain, France, Communist China or the rest of the anti-gun members of the United Nations are going to vote.

So our ONE AND ONLY CHANCE of stopping the UN’s “Small Arms Treaty” is during the ratification process in the U.S. Senate.

As you know, it takes 67 Senate votes to ratify a treaty.

With 40 Republicans, that should be easy, right?

Unfortunately, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

First, you know just as well as I do that not all the remaining Republicans in the Senate are “pro-gun” in any sense of the term.

Second, even with the partisan rancor in Washington, D.C., many GOP Senators get “queasy” about killing treaties for fear of “embarrassing” the President — especially with “international prestige” at stake.

They look at ratifying treaties much like approving Presidents’ Supreme Court nominees.

And remember, there were NINE Republicans who voted to confirm anti-gun Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

A dozen more GOP Senators only voted against Sotomayor after receiving massive grassroots pressure from the folks back home.

So if we’re going to defeat the UN’s “Small Arms Treaty” we have to turn the heat up on the U.S. Senate now before it’s too late!

So won’t you click here to sign IMMEDIATELY?