Gun grabbing in the name of children's rights

Parental rights, religious rights, educational rights and the right to discipline are all threatened by the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. But a careful review of the United Nations' own documents reveals an additional threat to the rights of Americans – the right of private gun ownership.

At first glance, the U.N.'s discussion of guns and children focuses on the subject of children being improperly used by Third World nations as child soldiers. All that can be said on this subject is that the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, or UNCRC, has had precious little impact in stopping this barbaric practice.

Yet there is another theme to be found in the U.N.'s attack on guns.

U.N. child's rights advocates believe, teach and promote the idea that all private gun ownership is dangerous for children, and children have the right to grow up in a community that is free from all guns.

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Limiting the rights of gun ownership is not some secret agenda of the U.N. but is open for all to see. UNICEF, the official U.N. agency charged with the worldwide advancement of children's rights, has published a four-color brochure entitled: "No Guns Please, We Are Children."

Inside this brochure we find the following assertions about guns and children:

Small arms and light weapons kill and disable more children and adults than any other instrument of violence in conflict and post-conflict situations and on the streets of cities worldwide. Every year, deaths linked to small arms and light weapons run into the hundreds of thousands, with those injured exceeding 1 million.
Small arms and light weapons cause profound physical and emotional damage, particularly to children, and affect their welfare.
In societies destabilized by the use of small arms and light weapons, children are denied many of their human rights, including their rights to freedom from violence and exploitation, survival and development, health care, education, and care within a family environment. As a result, hard-won developmental gains are often lost and may even be reversed.
In communities enjoying relative peace, children witness and are traumatized by the use of small arms and light weapons in domestic violence and in disputes. Children also become accidental victims because adults fail to keep the weapons out of their reach.

Two crucial conclusions can be drawn from these assertions:

First, the U.N. intends to address far more than children in war; the object is to eliminate the "threat" posed by guns from the lives of all children whether their community is characterized as "in conflict," "post-conflict," "destabilized," or "enjoying relative peace." Guns are a threat "on the streets of cities worldwide."

Second, the U.N. contends that the threat posed by guns violates the "human rights" of children.

This official U.N. brochure has more to say about the public policy implications of the demand for restrictions on firearms in the name of the human rights of children:

"Efforts must be ongoing to overcome the destructive messages that small arms and light weapons are essential instruments for survival and protection in daily life."
"Governments must support communities in eliminating the insecurity, fear and instability that often lead people to acquire and keep guns."
"Regulations are needed to ensure that small arms and light weapons are not easy to acquire and are never accessible to children."

The U.N. believes the idea that small arms are "essential instruments for survival and protection" is a destructive attitude that violates the "respect for human rights" required by the UNCRC.

In another United Nations official publication ("Guide to the Implementation of the World Programme of Action for Youth"), the U.N. urges member nations to "explore enacting bans on all handguns to civilians or certain cheap models that are attractive to youth."

The U.N. agenda for children does not stop with the direct disarming of individuals. Article 29 of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child imposes educational standards on nations that become parties to the treaty. This includes "peace education," which in other U.N. contexts means disarmament education. The U.N. World Congress on Disarmament Education adopted the following statements:

Definition of disarmament

For the purposes of disarmament education, disarmament may be understood as any form of action aimed at limiting, controlling or reducing arms, including unilateral disarmament initiatives and, ultimately, general and complete disarmament under effective international control. It may also be understood as a process aimed at transforming the current system of armed nation states into a new world order of planned unarmed peace, in which war is no longer an instrument of national policy and peoples determine their own future and live in security based on justice and solidarity.

While our Second Amendment should be interpreted broadly to protect gun ownership, there is significant reason to believe that pressure will be placed on legislative bodies to tell adults that, while they may still own guns, they must be kept in another location if children are present in the home.

The U.N. is not content with regulating our families and children. They want us to march into a New World Order without weapons. Our families and our means of defending our families are in significant peril.

The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child must be defeated.

To read our full report and get further information on the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Parental Rights Amendment, please go to www.parentalrights.org.