By Michael Webster: Syndicated Investigative Reporter
As a politically divisive debate on gun control rages on in the United States following a rash of mass shootings, the United Nations voted today to meet in March to finalize the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) after nearly two decades of negotiations.
Dr Natalie Goldring, a senior research fellow at the Center for Security Studies at the Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, said the upcoming conference probably represented the final opportunity to reach such a treaty within the UN structure.
The 193-member General Assembly voted overwhelmingly - 133 to nil, with 17 abstentions - to hold the conference on March 18-28, 2013.
All six major arms-exporting countries - China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK and the United States - voted for the resolution.
The conference is expected to approve a treaty to regulate the estimated $73bn global arms trade. In 2011, the United States alone concluded arms deals worth $66.3bn, according to the Congressional Research Service.
The current draft text, which will be the negotiating document in March, has been kicked around since July 2012.
The National Rifle Association (NRA), the most powerful gun lobby in the United States, has opposed the treaty on the belief it would hinder or deprive gun ownership in the USA.
"The political environment is quite different (since the November presidential polls). My hope is that President (Barack) Obama's convincing re-election victory last month will help ensure that the US delegation advocates a strong ATT now and in the negotiating conference next spring," Goldring said.
The US government has made clear its refusal to accept a treaty with any provisions that would restrict civilian possession of firearms in the United States. It has even published its "diplomatic redlines" on the Department of State website, an action that may be without precedent in this context.
Thus far the US government has also opposed any inclusion of ammunition or explosives in the treaty, which Goldring considers "short sighted".
"At a minimum, all countries should be required to track ammunition when it is exported, as the United States already does. To be effective, an ATT must include all types of transfers and all types of conventional weapons, including their parts, components, and munitions," she said.
According to the DICK ACT of 1902... It CAN'T BE REPEALED (GUN CONTROL FORBIDDEN) -
Protection against Tyrannical Government
The Dick Act of 1902 also known as the Efficiency of Militia Bill H.R.11654, of June 28, 1902 invalidates all so-called gun-control laws. It also divides the militia into three distinct and separate entities.
The three classes H.R. 11654 provides for are the organized militia, henceforth known as the National Guard of the State, Territory and District of Columbia, the unorganized militia and the regular army.
The militia encompasses every able-bodied male between the ages of 18 and 45. All members of the unorganized militia have the absolute personal right and 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms of any type, and as many as they can afford to buy.
The Dick Act of 1902 cannot be repealed; to do so would violate bills of attainder and ex post facto laws which would be yet another gross violation of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The President of the United States has zero authority without violating the Constitution to call the National Guard to serve outside of their State borders.
The National Guard Militia can only be required by the National Government for limited purposes specified in the Constitution (to uphold the laws of the Union; to suppress insurrection and repel invasion).
These are the only purposes for which the General Government can call upon the National Guard.
Attorney General Wickersham advised President Taft, "the Organized Militia (the National Guard) can not be employed for offensive warfare outside the
Limits of the United States."
The Honorable William Gordon, in a speech to the House on Thursday, October 4, 1917, proved that the action of President Wilson in ordering the Organized Militia (the National Guard) to fight a war in Europe was so blatantly unconstitutional that he felt Wilson ought to have been
Impeached.
During the war with England an attempt was made by Congress to pass a bill authorizing the president to draft 100,000 men between the ages of 18 and 45 to invade enemy territory, Canada.
The bill was defeated in the House by Daniel Webster on the precise point that Congress had no such power over the militia as to authorize it to empower the President to draft them into the regular army and send them out of the country.
The fact is that the President has no constitutional right, under any circumstances, to draft men from the militia to fight outside the borders of the USA, and not even beyond the borders of their respective states.
Today, we have a constitutional LAW which still stands in waiting for the legislators to obey the Constitution which they swore an oath to uphold.
Charles Hughes of the American Bar Association (ABA) made a speech which is contained in the Appendix to Congressional Record, House, September 10,1917, pages 6836-6840 which states:
"The militia, within the meaning of these provisions of the
Constitution is distinct from the Army of the United States." In these pages we also find a statement made by Daniel Webster, "that the great principle of the Constitution on that subject is that the militia is the militia of the States and of the General Government; and thus being the militia of
The States, there is no part of the Constitution worded with greater care and with more scrupulous jealousy than that which grants and limits the power of Congress over it."
"This limitation upon the power to raise and support armies clearly establishes the intent and purpose of the framers of the Constitution to limit the power to raise and maintain a standing army to voluntary enlistment, because if the unlimited power to draft and conscript was intended to be conferred, it would have been a useless and puerile thing to limit the use of money for that purpose.
Conscripted armies can be paid, but they are not required to be, and if it had been intended to confer the extraordinary power to draft the bodies of citizens and send them out of the country in direct conflict with the limitation upon the use of the militia imposed by the same section and article, certainly some restriction or limitation would have been imposed to restrain the unlimited use of such power."
All according to The Honorable William Gordon.
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