Rand Paul Email Touts False Gun Conspiracy About U.N. Treaty That Doesn’t Exist »

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has a real knack for paranoia. Playing the hero in his contrived world of made-up threats, Paul battles the menacing enemies of pregnant women, American babies, and the Department of Education. On Monday, Paul’s right-wing fan base got a sneak peek at Paul’s next target: the U.N. Small Arms Treaty.

In an email to supporters, Paul warned that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the “global gun-grabbers” are out to “strip you and me of ALL our freedoms” by signing a treaty designed by the “petty dictators and one-world socialists who control the UN” to “CONFISCATE and DESTROY” all civilian firearms across the world. With his trusty sidekick the National Association For Gun Rights and a financial contribution from his base, Paul can “lead the fight to defeat this radical treaty“:

Gun-grabbers around the globe believe they have it made.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently announced the Obama Administration will be working hand-in-glove with the UN to pass a new “Small Arms Treaty.”
Disguised as an “International Arms Control Treaty” to fight against “terrorism,” “insurgency” and “international crime syndicates,” the UN’s Small Arms Treaty is in fact a massive, GLOBAL gun control scheme.
I’m helping lead the fight to defeat this radical treaty in the United States Senate and I want your help.
Please join me by taking a public stand against this outright assault on our national sovereignty by signing the Official Firearms Sovereignty Survey.
Ultimately, the UN’s Small Arms Treaty is designed to register, ban and CONFISCATE firearms owned by private citizens like YOU.
So far, the gun-grabbers have successfully kept the exact wording of their new scheme under wraps. [...]
And along with your signed survey, I hope you’ll send a generous contribution of $250, $100, $50 or even just $35 to help finance this battle.
With your generous contribution, the National Association for Gun Rights will continue contacting Second Amendment supporters to turn up the heat on targeted U.S. Senators.

Paul’s conspiratorial email is missing one tiny footnote: there is no U.N. Small Arms Treaty. While the U.N. has been considering the feasibility of such a treaty, Paul’s “piece of scarelore” is “erroneous in all its particulars.” Clinton has never signed such a treaty. Nor could she, Congress, or the President ever do so. The Supreme Court’s Reid v. Covert decision established that the Constitution — which still includes the Second Amendment — supersedes international treaties. In fact, the only treaty that Clinton said the U.S. would possibly consider is a treaty that combats the illegal, international trade of small arms by setting “international standards” to “close gaps” that “allow weapons to pass onto the illicit market.” The policy has “nothing to do with restricting the sale or ownership” of guns inside the U.S. A point so salient that even the NRA felt compelled to squash the nonsense.

But the National Association of Gun Rights feels compelled to fundraise on it. As Kentucky progressive blog Barefoot and Progressive notes, Paul’s email “appears to have originated” from the NAGR, “a far far right 2nd Amendment group that endorsed Rand Paul early in the 2010 primary” and celebrates him as a “pro-gun hero.”

To see the entire email, see below: More »