Posted on 04/13/2012 2:00:58 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
ST. LOUIS Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says the United Nations should adopt a treaty giving everyone on the planet the right to bear firearms.
The GOP presidential candidate told the National Rifle Association convention Friday in St. Louis that the group has been too timid in promoting gun rights.
(Excerpt) Read more at pennlive.com ...
See my #39 and listen to the speech.
Thanks for a sane analysis. Very few if any in the preceding 37 posts.
If Newt cannot pull off the GOP nomination, I would like to see him serve as the new Attorney General. As a historian, a non-lawyer, with an ego the size of Texas, he would blow the rotten DOJ establishment to pieces and perhaps implement some radically needed reforms.
BINGO!
Well then, kudos to Newt and boos for whoever mangled the headline.
Well, maybe not, but I'd bet that it's not his plan that only the bad guys own them.
You are silly. God wants his people to thank him for existence in this world. Self defense has been an issue since the existence of man. Some have spears, some are not allowed to have spears. God’s People have spears to defend themselves from Satan and his minions. Thus the Bill of Rights.
>> Newt said the UN should acknowledge this God-given right.
>> I don’t think it was God’s plan that everyone own guns
Is having a “right” a requirement to exercise it? Of course not.
The UN should be disbanded and kicked to the curb.... they have no authority over any American, they can go straight to hell.
Who here said the UN had authority over ANYONE, much less any American?
Are you claiming Newt said they do?
He said no such thing.
The very idea that the U.N. could tell country’s what to do is so repugnant that this alone drops Newt down a step in my judgement. I don’t care what they are telling country’s, its wrong.
National Rifle Association Meeting - Part 2 3:09:30 Rick Perrys Speech
Not trying to defend the UN’s document, only noting some differences:
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a generic document, and a bit of a “motherhood statement”, which is not country-specific. It is supposed to cover a broad range of “universal” issues, such as: freedoms, justices, international relations, and so on.. promoting utopian vision & aims - also, it was written in 1948, post-WWII.
The US Constitution & the Bill of Rights, OTOH, were written nearly 2 centuries earlier (1789?), in a completely different historical, political and cultural context, very specific to the US, herself.
Hard to compare the two. But, factually, I agree with Livius: “that many countries accept international treaties as superior to their own law. This is, in fact, one of their legal principles, and its what gives the UN and other such bodies so much clout.”
Newt was cleverly exposing the U.N., and proposing a radical idea that would increase freedom throughout the world. But a percentage of people here won’t understand that. All they hear is that Newt in some way acknowledged that, like it or not, the U.N. has some sway in what many countries do, therefore Newt is a communist. There used to be more of a thoughtful, Bill Buckley conservatism here. Now we have more of a John Birchite, knee jerk reaction to everything. If you present an idea that has any complexity to it, people won’t listen or they will read into it things that are not there.
Rather than focusing on the issue of US involvement in the United Nations, it may be more helpful to read this article which has a lot more detail about how Romney doesn’t have a strong NRA record and Gingrich does:
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2872153/posts
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.