Townhall
Democratic Senators Pen Letter to Obama, UN Opposing Arms Trade Treaty
by Leah Barkoukis
Oct 26, 2013

Though Secretary of State John Kerry signed the UN Arms Trade Treaty in September, there are positive signs that the treaty will be dead on arrival in the Senate. Last week Sens. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and Joe Manchin, D-W.V., released a bipartisan letter opposing the treaty, which was signed by 48 of their colleagues. And on Tuesday, four Democratic Senators sent a letter to President Obama, Kerry and the UN stating that the small arms treaty would not be ratified.

The letter, sent by Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., said that “because of unaddressed concerns that this Treaty’s obligations could undermine our nation’s sovereignty and the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans, we would oppose the Treaty if it were to come before the U.S. Senate.”

The following two excerpts by Ted Bromund, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, remind us why so many legislators are fighting against the ATT:

The ATT nominally requires signatory nations to act to regulate their import and export of conventional weapons and related activities. But all nations already have the unquestioned right to control such activities.

The fact that many nations haven’t done so suggests that they’re not actually interested in or capable of such regulations. The ATT will bind the U.S., but it is unlikely to lead the world’s bad and incompetent governments to behave any better. We have nothing to gain from signing.

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