The United Nations General Assembly is prepared to move forward with a worldwide plan later this year to manage ammunition around the globe. For those who actively protect constitutional rights, this is yet another battleground on the horizon.
The U.N.’s Open-Ended Working Group on Conventional Ammunition (OEWG) wrapped up its development of international standards in early June. It did not go unnoticed by gun rights organizations.
Attending the meetings were representatives from the National Rifle Association and the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute. According to the NRA’s James Baranowski, the measures approved by the body will certainly take effect.
“It’s going to the General Assembly in September. It’s basically a foregone conclusion,” Baranowski related to Fox News Digital. “It’s the way of the U.N. It’s a game of chess, not checkers.”
The OEWG was created in February 2022 through a General Assembly resolution. Its stated purpose was to review and address the accumulation of surplus stockpiles by certain entities, and its final report was released in June.
The concern, Baranowski said, is that gun rights opponents will attempt to use the report in U.S. politics as an intricate part of international law. The NRA’s director of international affairs admitted that the final product could have been far more threatening.
“It could have been a much worse document to start the framework,” Baranowski observed. “That said, it is never going away. It is a living document that will be modified. We are going to have to fight this every year.”
Among its objectives are programs to restrict the entry of small arms in conflict zones, stopping accidental explosions at munitions sites, and increasing the roles of women in the ammunition field. This is according to Adedeji Ebo, director of the U.N. Office of Disarmament Affairs.
Interestingly, the group sought to determine the barriers that keep women from having meaningful roles in ammunition management and how these may be overcome.
A rather unusual subject matter for those who wish to spread gun control around the globe.
The original drafts of the framework included references to “individuals” and ammunition surplus stockpiles. This alarmed Second Amendment organizations, and they successfully pushed to have these terms eliminated.
According to Baranowski, for now the U.N. framework only relates to governments.
The worry remains that the final OEWG report does not specify what constitutes a “stockpile” or “end users.” An NRA concern is that even the ownership of a box of two dozen rounds could be defined as a stockpile by the U.N.
Baranowski noted that “a stockpile could be a million rounds in a government stockpile, or it could be a box of 25 rounds at a local police station.” He explained that it is limited to governments at the present time, but he believes that language will ultimately be deleted. “There was an effort to include individual end users.”
Ebo termed the final product a “ray of hope for the disarmament community.” He said that it will be warmly welcomed by areas that have suffered from “the scourge of war and armed violence.” These desperate situations, he added, are made worse by mismanagement and illegal flows of ammunition.
Certainly, there are instances where this is true. However, it bears close watching by gun rights organizations to ensure that these international efforts do not encroach on Americans’ Second Amendment freedoms.
Gun rights opponents would like nothing better than to base their arguments on this nebulous “international law.”
