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President Clinton threw down the gauntlet in his State of the Union address last month when he proclaimed, "Every state in this country already requires hunters and automobile drivers to have a license. I think they ought to do the same thing for handgun purchases.... I hope you’ll help me pass that in this Congress." The program being developed by the president would require gun purchasers to have a photo I.D. license to purchase handguns. The licensing requirement would eventually include all guns. Only federal licensed dealers could sell guns.

The Clinton program seems to be a direct response to new recommendations issued by the United Nations on August 19th last summer. Entitled "Report of the Group of Government Experts on Small Arms," the task group included U.S. representation. According to the November 22, 1999 issue of The New American, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told the UN Security Council Small Arms Ministerial on September 24th that, "the United States strongly supports these steps," and "welcome the important precedent which the UN has set." Albright concluded that the U.S. would work to "commit to finishing negotiations on firearms protocol to the UN Transnational Organized Crime Convention by the end of 2000."

The UN report makes 24 recommendations and many more suggestions that add up to a comprehensive program for global gun control, including:

"All small arms and light weapons which are not under legal civilian possession and which are not required for the purposes of national defense and internal security, should be collected and destroyed by States as expeditiously as possible.

"All States should ensure that they have in place adequate laws, regulations and administrative procedures to exercise effective control over the legal possession of small arms....

States are encouraged to integrate measures to control ammunition..."

U.S. Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) correctly identifies this effort as "an affront to our way of life and our constitutional government. Mixing gun control with internationalism is certain to result in an assault on American rights and liberties." The UN sponsored effort is a direct assault on the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The founders made it very clear that the Second Amendment was designed to give the right to bear arms to all citizens to keep the federal government from becoming tyrannical. In iron fisted global governance, however, gun control is essential to keep citizens from defending themselves.

As with most efforts to implement global governance, Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) have taken the lead role. In a September 24th speech, Secretary General Kofi Annan notes that, "The momentum for combating small arms proliferation has also come from civil society, which has been increasingly active on this issue. The establishment early this year of the International Action Network on Small Arms [IANSA] has helped to sharpen public focus on small arms, which has helped us gain the public support necessary for success." According to its website IANSA will "provide a transnational framework" for the mobilization of a broad citizen movement in favor of gun control. IANSA is made up of hundreds of otherwise unrelated NGOs.

Funding for IANSA comes largely from five agencies of small to medium-size governments: The Belgian Ministry for Development Cooperation; the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the United Kingdom Department for International Development; and the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The funding of IANSA by governments raises the question of collusion. Thomas Mason, an attorney for the National Rifle Association (NRA), claims that, "A dynamic for worldwide gun control efforts has developed in the international arena over the past five years—an unholy alliance between NGOs, small to medium-size governments and the United Nation.... People have no idea that the United Nations is a totally closed process. There is no public records law or open meetings law. As a member of the public you do not have an automatic right to attend committee meetings. To get in the door you have to be an accredited NGO."

The UN General Assembly voted last December to convene "United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects" in June-July, 2001. The first of three preparatory conferences (Prepcoms) is scheduled to be held on the 28th of this month at the UN Headquarters in New York. As with almost every other global issue, the Prepcoms are designed to use NGOs, in this case IANSA, to force the nations into accepting UN control over guns. By the time the actual conference is held in 2001, a treaty will be presented giving the UN jurisdiction over gun possession and use.