Negotiations on the UN Small Arms Treaty have stalled out. Hopefully people will stop yelling at me about it now.
Yes, there’s a chance that it’ll come up for another vote by the end of the year, but its momentum will be severely stalled. Even if it does cross the pond, there’s no way 2/3 of Congress would ever vote for it. No, the President cannot “get around it with an Executive Order.” Put simply, the guys in blue helmets aren’t going to come raining out of the sky like Slim Pickens to take our guns.
For all the existential crisis this seems to be causing, I’m unsure if anyone’s actually researched this for themselves. If it were to be enacted, the treaty would do nothing to affect commerce in arms within the United States. It would regulate international commerce. That means, like, from one country to a different country.
Alabama and Georgia are not separate countries, so we can all sleep soundly. Furthermore, no treaty can override the Constitution, of which the 2nd Amendment is a part. The Supreme Court came down on this pretty firmly in 1957.
If you really want something to curdle the blood, Senators Lautenberg, Schumer, and Feinstein are trying to get an amendment to S. 2105 that bans high capacity magazines. Oh look, Gillibrand’s a co-sponsor! I wonder how the NRA feels about that rosy endorsement they gave her in 2008.
Why do I sound flippant and dismissive? Because this is nothing new. Feinstein and Schumer tried appending this to at least twenty bills in the 110th Congress. That is, twenty is where I stopped counting. They had the most receptive Congress possible at the time, and they couldn’t get anything out of committee.
So, yeah. Feinstein will also try to get the Assault Weapons Ban reintroduced in January, like she has every year since 2004. Bobby Rush will try to get nationwide handgun registration, just like he has every year since 2000. Anyone can propose anything; that doesn’t mean it’ll grow legs and start kicking puppies.
If you absolutely must have something to fret over, consider the Big Rip. That looks to be a real downer.