Check with your former colleagues, Secretary Kerry: there was no point to signing this treaty, because it will not be ratified.
Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to sign an arms trade treaty opposed by the Senate and the gun lobby as early as Wednesday, and Republicans aren’t happy about it.
[snip]
“This treaty is already dead in the water in the Senate, and they know it,” said Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services. “The Administration is wasting precious time trying to sign away our laws to the global community and unelected U.N. bureaucrats.”
A majority of Senators oppose the treaty because it covers small arms, making ratification impossible in the short term.
So let me correct the Hill: Republicans and a critical number of Democrats aren’t happy about this bill, given that Inhofe got 53 votes opposing signing this thing. I am morally certain that most of the people reading this know that you need 67 yea votes in the Senate to ratify a treaty: why doesn’t Barack Obama?
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: For the benefit of any gun control advocates reading this: ‘yea’ is an archaic way of saying ‘yes.’
PPS: I find the Hill’s fascination with the National Rifle Association entertaining, too.
What the- What good does signing it do? If they try to enforce it, it will get over turned in court! Won’t it?
Sure it will. We can have faith that the courts won’t screw us over…
I’m pretty sure that sarcasm that intense is banned under the Hague Conventions.
Yeah, and a very large chunk of what the federal government does is prohibited under the Constitution….
The Senate voted 99-0 in opposition to Kyoto and Al Gore still signed it and Bill Clinton withheld it from a vote. Since then, the EPA, et. al., have been force feeding us an AGW crap sandwich. One of Bush’s many errors was not submitting Kyoto to a vote in order to void Gore’s signature.
Expect liberty restricting fallout from this never to be ratified treaty.