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United Nations: You Have No Right To Self-Defense


Glenn Reynolds has been pointing to several people talking about a UN report that minimizes the importance of what many hold to be the most basic of all human rights, that of self defense.

    20. Self-defence is a widely recognized, yet legally proscribed, exception to the universal duty to respect the right to life of others. Self-defence is a basis for exemption from criminal responsibility that can be raised by any State agent or non-State actor. Self-defence is sometimes designated as a “right”. There is inadequate legal support for such an interpretation. Self-defence is more properly characterized as a means of protecting the right to life and, as such, a basis for avoiding responsibility for violating the rights of another.

This is one of many reasons why it is so important to expose the dangerous call for the U.S. to recognize and obey international law from organizations like the ACLU. The Second Amendment is only one of many things that becomes threatened as our soverignty is undermined whenever we lean towards this dangerous direction. Of course the U.N. is not the only organization that argues the right to self defense is not a right at all. The ACLU, supposed defender of the Constitution, carry the same philosphy.

    ACLU POLICY “The ACLU agrees with the Supreme Court’s long-standing interpretation of the Second Amendment [as set forth in the 1939 case, U.S. v. Miller] that the individual’s right to bear arms applies only to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia. Except for lawful police and military purposes, the possession of weapons by individuals is not constitutionally protected. Therefore, there is no constitutional impediment to the regulation of firearms.” –Policy #47

The ACLU and other’s push to adopt international law and the use of foreign law by judges interpreting the Constitution is a dangerous road. I could go on and on about this, but there is no reason when someone else does a much better job than I could ever do. Willisms does an excellent job explaining why an “armed society is a polite society”. I will add that it is also what ensures and defines a free one.

Here is a sample…

    The UN is most eager to deny that self-defense is a right, because this would obligate the UN to defend the concept of individual self-defense. Since unarmed self-defense in a world full of weapons is too often meaningless, this puts the UN in the position of having to defend the individual right to bear arms. Quelle horror! Is there anything more vulgar to a silk-suited euroweenie diplomat than individual gun ownership? This should not baffle you - the UN and its supporters are proponents of a single world government, under the ludicrous belief that a unitary government would hold a monopoly on all arms throughout the world, thus abolishing violence. Then, once violence is abolished the UN may disarm itself and the glorious new age of peace, love and rainbows can ensue.

ACLU And The Second Amendment


One would think that an organization that claims it’s purpose is to protect our Constitutional rights would readily defend our second amendment. Sadly, this is not the case. The ACLU is completely absent in defending this right, and while it has not become active in fighting it, its policy clearly shows why they don’t defend it….they don’t believe in it!

    ACLU POLICY “The ACLU agrees with the Supreme Court’s long-standing interpretation of the Second Amendment [as set forth in the 1939 case, U.S. v. Miller] that the individual’s right to bear arms applies only to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia. Except for lawful police and military purposes, the possession of weapons by individuals is not constitutionally protected. Therefore, there is no constitutional impediment to the regulation of firearms.” –Policy #47

    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.”

Can anyone see the contradiction between the Constitution’s actual text with that of the ACLU?

    “Gun prohibitionists often cite this case for the proposition that the court held that the Second Amendment only protected the right of the states` National Guard to have government issued arms (i.e., the “Collective Rights” theory). This is an untruth. In fact, the court held that the entire populace constituted the “militia,” and that the Second Amendment protected the right of the individual to keep and bear militia type arms.”Source

So the ACLU wants to use dated cases to back up its purely politically biased policy? How about this:

    “All of the evidence indicates that the Second Amendment, like other parts of the Bill of Rights, applies to and protects individual Americans.”

    “We conclude that the phrase ‘bear arms’ refers generally to the carrying or wearing of arms. . . [The] argument that ‘bear arms’ was exclusively, or even usually, used to only refer to the carrying or wearing of arms by a soldier or militiaman must be rejected.”

    “We find that the history of the Second Amendment reinforces the plain meaning of its text, namely that it protects individual Americans in their right to keep and bear arms whether or not they are a member of a select militia or performing active military service or training.” Fifth Circuit of Appeals 2001

    The Supreme Court therefore views the words “the people” in the Second Amendment to have the same meaning as in the First, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments. If “the people” really meant the right of states to maintain a militia, then we would be left with the absurd notion that only the states have the right to peaceably assemble, only the states have the right to be secure in their persons and property, etc. The Supreme Court’s position is indisputable: the Second Amendment protects the individual right to bear arms. Also instructive is the Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 97th Congress, Second Session (February 1982)

These are much more current sources to use for interpretation than one from 1939! As a matter of fact, see what the Supreme Court has said in 35 other cases on gun rights here. You will find that in an overwhelming majority of the cases they have said that the second amendment protects an “individual’s” right to bear arms.

So, if you follow the rationale of the ACLU….I guess those fine pilgrims who settled this great nation had no right to hunt for food using a gun, or protect their families from wild animals and criminals! As a matter of fact I wouldn’t have those same rights today!

Throughout our history Americans have never been denied their right to own a gun as an individual. Don’t you think Congress would have intervened early in our history if their intentions were as the ACLU believes?

This issue isn’t even about gun control, according to the ACLU we don’t even have the right to own one. What more control do you need?

Any intelligent person who wants to study or debate this issue seriously should start with S. Levinson, The Embarrassing Second Amendment. Professor Levinson of the University of Texas was a devoted liberal who set out to prove that the Second Amendment did not protect an individual’s right to bear arms. To his great embarrassment, he found the evidence to be overwhelmingly to the contrary. He had the integrity to admit it, for which he deserves utmost respect. He does not like gun ownership, any more than I like flag-burning, but he recognized that the right does exist, and is an important inclusion to our rights protected by the constitution, despite whether one likes it or not.

Even the majority of democrats that fight for gun control would not go as far as the ACLU has in it’s philosphy towards the second amendment. Criminals would obtain their weapons illegally anyway, and it would leave the rest of us two choices; go defenseless or become criminals ourselves in the process of securing our own means of protection.

Thank God for the NRA, and thank God that the ACLU has not been active in pushing it’s interpretation of the second amendment. Let’s hope it stays that way. In parting I leave you with some quotes.

    “A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves….all men capable of bearing arms

….”…..Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, Additional Letters, from the Federal Farmer, 1788

    “The advantage of being armed…the Americans possess over the people of all other nations…. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several Kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”

–James Madison,Federalist No. 26

    “The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that . . . it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”

– Letter to John Cartwright, 1824. (The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Memorial Edition (ME), Lipscomb and Bergh, editors, 20 Vols., Washington, D.C., 1903-04, 16:45.

    “No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”

–Thomas Jefferson

United Nations: You Have No Right To Self-Defense

Glenn Reynolds points to a UN report that attempts to minimize the most basic and premier human right of all: self-defense -

    "20. Self-defence is a widely recognized, yet legally proscribed, exception to the universal duty to respect the right to life of others. Self-defence is a basis for exemption from criminal responsibility that can be raised by any State agent or non-State actor. Self-defence is sometimes designated as a “right”. There is inadequate legal support for such an interpretation. Self-defence is more properly characterized as a means of protecting the right to life and, as such, a basis for avoiding responsibility for violating the rights of another."

If a guy breaks into your house with a gun, and you shoot him, you are 'violating his rights' according to the UN, not engaging in your right to self-defense. The UN's notion that there is "inadequate legal support" for the idea that self-defense is a human right is an agenda-driven wilful misreading of texts on the issue. The right to self-defense is the first among all human rights. Even Thomas Hobbes recognized that "summe of the Right of Nature" is "by all means we can, to defend our selves." Enlightenment literature and legal thought is replete with the concept of self-defense as the cornerstone of all natural rights. As an example, the Pennsylvania Declaration of 1776 stated that "the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state." In criticizing the UN report, the Claremont Institute points out that the very founders of international law itself, who would count for something at the UN one would think, Grotius and Emmerich de Vattel both recognized the concept.

The UN is most eager to deny that self-defense is a right, because this would obligate the UN to defend the concept of individual self-defense. Since unarmed self-defense in a world full of weapons is too often meaningless, this puts the UN in the position of having to defend the individual right to bear arms. Quelle horror! Is there anything more vulgar to a silk-suited euroweenie diplomat than individual gun ownership? This should not baffle you - the UN and its supporters are proponents of a single world government, under the ludicrous belief that a unitary government would hold a monopoly on all arms throughout the world, thus abolishing violence. Then, once violence is abolished the UN may disarm itself and the glorious new age of peace, love and rainbows can ensue.

The report goes out of its way to clear up any silly confusion about self-defense for States, including totalitarian regimes, as somehow also applying to lowly individual human beings:

"Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations applies to the States acting in self-defence against armed attacks against their State sovereignty. It does not apply to situations of self-defence for individual persons."

How ironic, that the preeminent human rights organization in the world, the UN, gives the full panoply of protections and immunities under international law to someone like Kim Jong-Il, whereas if you engage in self-defense you are 'violating the rights of another.' This goes to the heart of an entire belief system rampant in the world today that thinks that all violence is bad regardless of circumstances and context, and that the problems of violence are caused by weapons and not those that wield them. We saw this in the 80's with the unilateral disarmament movement. They believed that reducing nuclear arsenals somehow reduced the chance of war breaking out. If we have an arsenal of 10,000 warheads and we reduce that arsenal to 5,000 warheads - voila! - we have reduced the chance of war by 50%! As if each warhead was just itching to detonate itself, so the fewer the better. And so it is with guns. Every gun is just waiting to go off, and so reducing the number of guns will somehow reduce violence. And as we all know, the mere possession of a gun causes the urge to violence in otherwise perfectly sane and law-abiding owners. So, if everyone just put their guns down, and put their full faith in sovereign government instead to protect them, we can begin to initiate the Reign of Peace.

Anyone see any holes in this logic?
P.S. As for the unilaterial disarmament argument, proponents of the argument that fewer warheads make war less likely get it exactly backwards. Fewer warheads makes it easier for an enemy to destroy those warheads, thus actually inviting attack. Shrinking nuclear arsenals can actually be destabilizing. Is this, then, an argument for more weapons?

An armed society is a polite society.

The following is a pdf file of the entire UN report:


http://www.iansa.org/un/documents/salw_hr_report_2006.pdf