Statement by U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein

- On the Bush Administration's Opposition to a UN Accord
to Stem the Flow of Guns Feeding International Terrorism and Drug Wars
July 10, 2001

"I am amazed by the Bush Administration's opposition to efforts to address the illegal trafficking of small arms through a United Nations Accord.

The mass proliferation of small arms -- shoulder-mounted missiles, assault weapons, grenade launchers and high-powered sniper rifles - is fueling terrorism and drug wars throughout the world. The United States should be a leader in curbing the carnage the weapons create, not encouraging and enabling it.

Unfortunately in a speech Monday at the opening of the first U.N. Conference on Small Arms, John R. Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Small Arms Control and International Security Affairs, challenged such efforts as a possible infringement of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Not only is Mr. Bolton flat out wrong, but it is rotten public policy to oppose measures to control the proliferation of small, but highly lethal, arms like AK47s, when a rampant explosion of these types of weapons is fueling hundreds of thousands of deaths across the continents.

First, Mr. Bolton's position on the Second Amendment is in direct contradiction to decades of Supreme Court precedent. Not one single gun control law has ever been overturned by the Court on Second Amendment grounds.

Contrary to the constant claims of the NRA, the meaning of the Second Amendment has been well-settled for more than 60 years - ever since the 1939 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Miller. In that case, the defendant was charged with transporting an unregistered sawed-off shotgun across state lines.

If a sawed-off shotgun is not protected by the Second Amendment, why does the Administration seem to feel that the Second Amendment protects the international trafficking of shoulder-launched missiles? If an American citizen cannot freely transport a sawed-off shotgun across state lines, why can't we work to stop the international transportation of grenade launchers and high powered, military sniper rifles? The Second Amendment argument simply makes no sense, and has no place in this debate.

The proliferation of small arms is a staggering problem: An estimated 500 million illicit small arms and light weapons are in circulation around the globe, and in the past decade four million people - more than 50% believed to be civilians - have been killed in civil wars and bloody fighting. The grimmest figures come from developing countries where small arms and light weapons have become the weapons of choice for narco-traffickers, terrorists and those involved in bloody civil conflicts.

The volume of weaponry has fueled cycles of violence and been a major factor in the devastation witnessed in recent conflicts in Africa, the Balkans, and South Asia, among other places. These conflicts undermine regional stability and endanger the spread of democracy and free-markets around the world.

The increased access by terrorists, guerrilla groups, criminals, and others to small arms and light weapons puts in jeopardy U.S. law enforcement efforts, business people based or traveling overseas, and even U.S. tourists.

In approaching the United Nations Conference, the U.S. government should negotiate and support making the trafficking of small arms traceable and eliminate the secrecy that permits thousands of weapons to fuel crime and war without anyone's knowledge of their source. We should be taking the lead on this issue, not taking the NRA line and opposing life-saving proposals.

U.S. leadership should ensure that the Conference is the first step, not the last, in the international community's efforts to control the spread of small arms and light weapons. I urge the Administration to step up and recognize the importance of this issue."

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