brisbane222
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- Jun 5, 2006
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UN says NRA Hystetrical
http://aaamatilda.proboards67.com/
New York - A renewed controversy erupted Friday before next week's UN conference on small arms and light weapons, as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan insisted organization has no plan to take away Americans' right to bear arms.
The US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, charged that the conference may infringe on Americans' constitutional right to bear weapons.
He vowed to defend that right when the two-week conference opens on Monday, saying that some UN members may have a 'larger agenda' aimed at the US Constitution's Second Amendment, which protects the right to own weapons.
'The message is clear: to the extent that there is a larger different agenda dealing with domestic gun control issues in the US, I don't think that it's an appropriate forum to discuss that,' Bolton said.
'There's nothing further from the truth,' Annan shot back. The officials spoke to reporters separately at UN headquarters in New York.
'It's legitimate that the UN, as an organization of sovereign states, to have concern about the welfare of people and want to do something about and bring order to small arms,' Annan said.
'We are not out to take guns away from the Americans, the intention is to make sure that guns don't get into the wrong hands,' Annan said.
Bolton, who led the US delegation to the 2001 UN conference on small arms and light weapons, said the US position this year around would be 'essentially the same.' The US delegation included a representative from the National Rifle Association, a strong pro-gun lobby group.
The conference was called to review progress made in the past five years to curb the lucrative trade in illicit weapons, which amounts to a quarter of the annual 4-billion-dollar global trade of firearms. Illicit weapons are those not registered by law by the government.
The UN said small arms and light weapons have been responsible for up to 90 per cent of deaths in conflicts around the world. Those weapons are preferred by drug smugglers, organized crime and gangs.
Small arms include hand guns, pistols, rifles, sub-machine guns, mortars, grenade and light missiles while light weapons include heavy machine guns, mounted grenade launchers, anti-tank guns and portable anti-aircraft guns.
A small arms survey by Switzerland said those weapons killed between 80,000 and 108,000 people in conflicts in 2003 and inflicted an estimated 200,000 non-conflict deaths each year.
http://aaamatilda.proboards67.com/
New York - A renewed controversy erupted Friday before next week's UN conference on small arms and light weapons, as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan insisted organization has no plan to take away Americans' right to bear arms.
The US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, charged that the conference may infringe on Americans' constitutional right to bear weapons.
He vowed to defend that right when the two-week conference opens on Monday, saying that some UN members may have a 'larger agenda' aimed at the US Constitution's Second Amendment, which protects the right to own weapons.
'The message is clear: to the extent that there is a larger different agenda dealing with domestic gun control issues in the US, I don't think that it's an appropriate forum to discuss that,' Bolton said.
'There's nothing further from the truth,' Annan shot back. The officials spoke to reporters separately at UN headquarters in New York.
'It's legitimate that the UN, as an organization of sovereign states, to have concern about the welfare of people and want to do something about and bring order to small arms,' Annan said.
'We are not out to take guns away from the Americans, the intention is to make sure that guns don't get into the wrong hands,' Annan said.
Bolton, who led the US delegation to the 2001 UN conference on small arms and light weapons, said the US position this year around would be 'essentially the same.' The US delegation included a representative from the National Rifle Association, a strong pro-gun lobby group.
The conference was called to review progress made in the past five years to curb the lucrative trade in illicit weapons, which amounts to a quarter of the annual 4-billion-dollar global trade of firearms. Illicit weapons are those not registered by law by the government.
The UN said small arms and light weapons have been responsible for up to 90 per cent of deaths in conflicts around the world. Those weapons are preferred by drug smugglers, organized crime and gangs.
Small arms include hand guns, pistols, rifles, sub-machine guns, mortars, grenade and light missiles while light weapons include heavy machine guns, mounted grenade launchers, anti-tank guns and portable anti-aircraft guns.
A small arms survey by Switzerland said those weapons killed between 80,000 and 108,000 people in conflicts in 2003 and inflicted an estimated 200,000 non-conflict deaths each year.
