Originally appeared in Newsletter Vol. 6, No. 2, Spring 2000

Jesse Helms, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a longtime ally of the NRA, has blocked funding of $200,000 towards a moratorium on the export, import and manufacture of small firearms to 16 Western African States. The U.S. was among the governments that agreed to contribute funds and expertise to implement a ban and $1 million more for measures to support conflict resolution. Helms said the project would be "using U.S. taxpayers' money to promote policies in foreign countries that may very well be a violation of the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution--if the federal government attempted such activities here at home." He said the proposed aid was a brazen international expansion of the President's and Vice President's domestic gun-control agenda.

The blocking of this aid reflects the gun lobby's global agenda. The NRA and its allies (The Safari Club International is one) are campaigning against what they describe as a worldwide conspiracy of gun snatchers. The ploy of frightening Americans, who then buy guns, give money to the NRA and raise its membership, has a broader goal: thwarting international attempts to contain the spread and misuse of small arms.

At a preparatory meeting for a U.N. conference (next year) on illicit arms trafficking, officials from war-devastated African states were flabbergasted at the audacity of NRA lobbyist Tom Mason advocating more guns, not fewer, to countries desperately seeking peace.

The NRA has long engaged in international activism, contributing money to pro-gun political candidates and campaigning against gun regulation in other countries. In a series of infomercials the NRA has accused the United Nations of "cleansing the globe of gun rights," with Charlton Heston stating, "If you follow politics at all, you know a lot of people in Washington DC want to take away your right to keep and bear arms. The truth is they have the whole world on their side, because the systematic disarming of a free people is happening across the globe today. From around the world, the message is clear--your guns are next. Only one thing stands in their way, the Second Amendment and the NRA."

Unregulated small arms are a serious problem. The illicit trafficking of guns fuels conflict, destabilizes entire regions, threatens U.S. peacekeepers abroad, squanders U.S. money needed for aid and development, and encourages extremists. Some governments are trying to do something about it but their efforts are stymied by arms sellers and anti-U.N. conspiracy theorists.

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