Ron Paul in the US House of Representatives, September 18, 2003

Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the “Right to Keep and Bear Arms Act.” This legislation prohibits US taxpayer dollars from being used to support or promote any United Nations actions that could infringe on the Second Amendment. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms Act also expresses the sense of Congress that proposals to tax, or otherwise limit, the right to keep and bear arms are “reprehensible and deserving of condemnation.”

Over the past decade, the UN has waged a campaign to undermine gun rights protected by the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called on members of the Security Council to “tackle” the proliferation and “easy availability” of small arms and light weapons. Just this June, the UN tried to “tackle” gun rights by sponsoring a “Week of Action Against Small Arms.” Of course, by small arms, the UN really means all privately owned firearms.

Secretary Annan is not the only globalist calling for international controls on firearms. For example, some world leaders, including French President Jacques Chirac, have called for a global tax on firearms. Meanwhile, the UN Security Council’s “Report of the Group of Governmental Experts on Small Arms” calls for a comprehensive program of worldwide gun control and praises the restrictive gun polices of Red China and France!

Contrary to the UN propaganda, the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right and, according to the drafters of the Constitution, the guardian of every other right. Scholar John Lott has shown that respecting the right to keep and bear arms is one of the best ways governments can reduce crime. Conversely, cities where the government imposes gun control have higher crime rates. Far from making people safer, gun control endangers innocent people by increasing the odds that they will be victimized!

Gun control also increases the odds that people will lose their lives and liberties to power-hungry government officials. Tyrannical governments throughout the world kill approximately 2,000,000 people annually. Many of these victims of tyranny were first disarmed by their governments. If the UN is successful in implementing a global regime of gun control, more innocent lives will be lost to public (and private) criminals.

I would remind my colleagues that policies prohibiting the private ownership of firearms were strongly supported by tyrants such as Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung.

Mr. Speaker, global gun control is a recipe for global tyranny and a threat to the safety of all law-abiding persons. I therefore hope all my colleagues will help protect the fundamental human right to keep and bear arms by cosponsoring the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Act.

Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.