Disarming the despots, America dithers

I've only been following this recently via Amnesty Int. I didn't know that the world was on the verge of finally putting together an Arms Trade Treaty. 

The goal would be to stop countries selling arms to tin pot dictators around the world who use these weapons in stupid wars that kill bazillions. You know, like Africa, where they're all so busy warring with each other that they've got no money for HIV meds and increasing the well being of their citizens. Or, they have some nut in power in their country who uses aid money to buy weapons to keep the population under control. Gov planning all too often gets wasted on how to kill instead of anything else. To say nothing of the Middle East.......

Great idea, lets stop arming these people to the hilt and then having to save them from themselves. You'd think it'd be a no brainer. Well, not in this crazy fucked up world. When the other day over a 100 countries were about to sign, guess who delayed the whole thing at the last minute? No prizes BTW, this is also a no brainer.

Why? Just why?

It seems now the next step is to wait until the Oct meeting of the UN General Assembly.

I'm disappointed, there’s no doubt about that. But I don’t view this delay as 'failure'. A hurdle, yes, but just one on a long road on which enormous progress has been made so far.

I feel heartened that, despite the efforts of the US, Russia and China to block a strong treaty, over 90 countries, including Australia, signed onto a statement expressing their disappointment a treaty had not been agreed upon. These countries also reaffirmed their commitment to establish a strong treaty as soon as possible.

What’s more, the final draft of the treaty, while not perfect, was strong.Several loopholes were narrowed and criminalisation of treaty breaches included. Best of all, it included measures that Amnesty has been campaigning about for years, including the "golden rule" that stops arms transfers taking place when it’s likely they’ll be used for serious human rights abuses or war crimes. This is a massive achievement.
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And why did America lead the way in this all falling to bits at the 11th hour? Because they feel threatened about not being able to arm themselves to the hilt at home.

The estimated $60bn international arms trade is unregulated, though the US and other countries have their own rules on exports.

The powerful National Rifle Association in the US has portrayed the treaty as a surrender of gun ownership rights enshrined in the US Constitution.

The politically controversial issue has re-emerged since last week's shooting at a Colorado cinema that killed 12 people.

On Thursday, a bipartisan group of 51 senators threatened to oppose the treaty if it falls short in protecting Americans' constitutional right to bear arms.

In a letter to Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the senators expressed serious concerns with the draft treaty that has circulated at the UN, saying that it signals an expansion of gun control that would be unacceptable.

Supporters of a treaty argue it would not affect law-abiding individual gun owners.
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 FFS..... So because of their right to blow each other away, we will continue (at least until Oct) to see nutbags in Africa and the like continue to buy weapons instead of HIV medicines. Un-fuckin-believable. Why should America impose it's loony tunes gun philosophy onto the entire world? Just because they want to be armed to the teeth doesn't mean we want to. Apparently American gun philosophy is more important that saving African lives.

I'm absolutely disgusted with this. Sure American pollies and gun worshippers, do your own thing over there, but don't fuckin preach to us about it. I didn't vote for your stupid NRA, and neither did the rest of the world. 

Note to the National Riffle Association in America. Fuck off!  You are a bunch of small minded twits.

I do hope that the momentum hasn't been lost in this, and that Oct will see movement forward, away from gun insanity.