Arms Control Treaty

Beginning with United Nations General Assembly Resolution 61/89 of 12 December 2006, there has been a United Nations initiative to establish an international treaty "establishing common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms". Its emphasis is on small arms, and is not from the much more powerful United Nations Security Council.

The Resolution acknowledges "the right of all States to manufacture, import, export, transfer and retain conventional arms for self-defence and security needs, and in order to participate in peace support operations"; it explicitly does not restrict ownership or production inside states, only actions between states.

Opposition
In the United States, however, this is seen by some activists, such as Wayne LaPierre, Executive Director of the National Rifle Association, as an attack on national sovereignty and rights in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He quoted former John Bolton, who was not confirmed as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under the George W. Bush Administration but had spoken against earlier drafts as interim representative, "The [Obama] Administration is trying to act as if this is really just a treaty about international trade between nations, but there's no doubt &mdash; as was the case back over a decade ago &mdash;that the real agenda here is domestic firearms control." LaPierre wrote, Details of the Obama/Clinton-endorsed treaty &mdash; which has not yet been finalized &mdash; will surely include international monitoring and control of every aspect of firearm commerce and ownership in the United States. He argues that "literally all of the international gun confiscation groups couch their renewed U.N. treaty effort in terms of what they call 'human rights'. But in the newspeak lexicon of the U.N., 'human rights' doesn't mean the right to self-defense as we know it."