Let me explain to you how fear mongering works. I stumbled across a Fox News article last week with the headline “UN arms treaty U.S. gun owners in foreign sights.” Intrigued, I clicked. In the first paragraph, the article exactly states “A treaty being hammered out this month at the United Nations – with Iran playing a key role – could expose the records of America’s gun owners to foreign governments – and, critics warn, eventually put the Second Amendment on global trial.” This is what is known in the news media as the lead, because it leads the reader into the rest of the article. Fox News, along with other major news networks, are very good at publishing leads designed to hook the reader, regardless of whether or not the story is based on fact. Let’s break down Fox’s opening paragraph. “A treaty being hammered out this month at the United Nations” is not the same thing as a signed and completed treaty. It’s in the works, but it has not stopped Fox from conveying a sense of finalized doom to the reader. The phrase “with Iran playing a key role” is thrown in there entirely for the purpose of scaring the living shit out of simpleton America. The clause, “could expose the records of America’s gun owners to foreign governments,” is the hook, the meat, the crucified, bastardization of news, twisted to incite fear among the masses. Finally, the statement “critics warn, [could] eventually put the Second Amendment on global trial” is Fox’s way of saying “BE AFRAID! Be very, very afraid!” Let’s sift through the obvious flaws before we “hammer out” the rest of it. Conservatives, Fox News’ primary audience, won’t even let Democrats try and regulate gun control, much less Iran. I don’t know how Iran could ever control weapons of private U.S. citizens, short of an invasion. States have shoddy records at best of who owns what guns. It’s worse in states without a waiting period to obtain a firearm. To put it simply, small town Wal-Marts all over this state sell every caliber of shotgun, rifle and handgun a trigger-happy enthusiast would ever want – and I don’t see the Walton family caving to international pressure of any kind that may diminish sales. I have no idea how the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America would ever go on global trial. There is one court in the land that has a say over the constitutionality of laws, and that is the Supreme Court – not the Ayatollah of Iran. Lastly, the United States has never adhered to any U.N. sanction or request that impeded our power. What the treaty actually is designed to do is cut down on illegal weapons trafficking which is perpetuating guerilla warfare between armed groups all over the globe. The treaty seeks to create a more comprehensive firearm registry in order to fight crime. It also seeks to confiscate unauthorized weapons, meaning those which are illegally obtained or have had the serial number removed. The treaty is doomed to failure, however, on the grounds that it seeks to ban the use of all semi-automatic weapons by private citizens, meaning any gun with a magazine that reloads itself. The bigger question we should be asking is why so many in our government oppose this plan. Is it because we want to maintain sovereignty over the control of our guns? Yes. But could it also be because the biggest arms dealer in the world is the United States government? “The United States signed weapons agreements valued at $37.8 billion in 2008, or 68.4 percent of all business in the global arms bazaar, up significantly from American sales of $25.4 billion the year before,” according to The New York Times. We sell more guns and fuel more global conflict than any other individual or government in the world. This issue is much bigger than “Dey took err guns!” Fox News would have you believe this issue is real, that somehow, international powers would finagle their way into our homes and disarm us. I call bullshit – and so should you. We have never listened to the U.N., and I doubt we will start now. Now, all we have to do is learn to tune out whichever bleach blonde bimbo Fox has reading the telempromter this evening.
Parker Cramer is a 21-year-old political science senior from Houston. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_pcramer.
 
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