NRA prez misses target

Could I ask the United Nations to ban telephones in the United States?

Yesterday I was awakened from a much-needed nap by a robocall from David Keene, president of the National Rifle Association.

The message went something like this:

The United Nations is going to take away your guns and ban all guns in the United States, just as they have been banned in, and here he named several countries. And isn’t it just a damn travesty that the United Nations is located on U.S. soil?

OK, that’s loosely paraphrased, but that was the gist of the scare tactic.

At the end of the call I was given the choice to punch “1” if I did not think the UN should (what?) do this on U.S. soil, and “2” if I thought it was OK. I punched “2” and was thanked for taking the "survey."

The NRA knows its target audience. This wasn’t a survey. It was a scare tactic aimed at an area populated by gunowners who love hunting. I do not object to hunting: it’s been around since the cavedwellers. What I object to is the NRA’s eternal effort to raise funds by convincing Americans that “they’re gonna get your guns.”

The member states of the UN, it seems, are drafting a treaty to “regulate the multibillion dollar global arms trade,” aka the weapons of war. To the members of the NRA this translates into threatening their hunting guns.

I am often astounded when my current read echoes current issues. In John Grisham’s “The Brethren,” a fictional member of the U.S. House is handpicked by a fictional CIA director to run for president because he is willing to double the defense budget – a move to ward off Armageddon, because a couple of Russian goons are stockpiling materiel to start “a second Cold War.”

Anyone who read the book or saw the movie, “Charlie Wilson’s War,” knows that such weapons are readily sold between countries. It’s a fact that Israel sold weapons to arm the mujahideen in Afghanistan as they founght the Soviet Union.

Hey, this stuff goes on, and it’s not just the transfer of war materiel, it arms terrorists, paramilitary groups and drug cartels. It’s got nothing to do with duck hunting.

But, the UN treaty is just the sort of thing to trigger mass hysteria among American defenders of the 2nd Amendment. And, keep the NRA’s coffers filled.

Remember the dreaded “16 words:” “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .”

If some nut job really is out there bartering for yellowcake, I, for one, would like to know some effort is being made to control it.

Read more about the NRA’s action HERE.

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As for the United Nations tainting U.S. soil, I think it’s a good time, once more, to read the preamble to its charter HERE.