Lou Dobbs continues to prove that his move from CNN to Fox Business Channel was not good for him or for anyone still watching him if they would like to be presented with some semblance of the truth instead of perpetual fearmongering. In the wake of
July 27, 2012

Lou Dobbs continues to prove that his move from CNN to Fox Business Channel was not good for him or for anyone still watching him if they would like to be presented with some semblance of the truth instead of perpetual fearmongering. In the wake of the Aurora massacre, one of the topics on this Friday's show was gun control, whether it be the possibility of new gun control laws being passed in America, or one of the right's favorite conspiracy theories, which is that the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty is going to take away everyone's guns.

And who better to bring in to weigh in on the topic, than discredited gun "researcher" John Lott. Media Matters has a long list of posts on Lott which you can read here. And Digby wrote about this nut back in 2006 here: Resurrection.

As Dobbs reported on the show, the U.N. failed to meet the deadline which was this Friday due to 51 Senators refusing to vote for it: Global arms treaty hits resistance as deadline ticks down:

Negotiators at the United Nations worked to complete a treaty to regulate the global arms trade by a Friday night deadline but faced resistance from some nations, including Iran, Syria and North Korea, and a request for more time from the United States.

The treaty aims to halt the cross-border flow of weapons and ammunition that has fueled violent conflicts around the world.

But some countries made clear their unhappiness with the restrictions in the treaty, which requires approval from all 193 United Nations members. And the Obama administration said it needed to study the text, which has gone through a series of revisions in a four-week negotiating process.

Complicating the politics of the negotiation, 51 U.S. senators have joined gun rights advocates in opposing the treaty, which they fear would infringe 2nd Amendment rights to bear arms.

The senators, in letters to President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, expressed "grave concern" that the treaty could affect Americans’ ability to buy arms. Arms-control advocates contend that the worry is groundless. [...]

[Updated 5:24 p.m. Friday July 27: U.N. members ultimately failed to reach agreement by the Friday deadline. The conference chairman, Ambassador Roberto Garcia Moritan, said that despite the stalemate,“we certainly are going to have a treaty in 2012,” the Associated Press reported.]

Think Progress has more debunking their U.N. conspiracy theory here: The Right-Wing’s Favorite New Conspiracy: The U.N. Is After Your Guns:

Call it the conspiracy theory that won’t die. The U.N. has been working for years to produce a final text of the Arms Trade Treaty, an agreement to regulate the global arms trade (right now, international banana and bottled water sales are more restricted than weapons sales). The negotiations have just restarted and, with them, a massive round of panic on the right about the U.N.’s nefarious plan to undermine the Second Amendment. The NRA frets that “global gun banners have markedly stepped up their attack on our Second Amendment freedoms.” Roughly 130 Congresspeople speculated that “the ATT is likely to pose significant threats to…our constitutional rights.” The Washington Times led an editorial with the screaming headline “The U.N. is coming for your guns.” There’s just one problem with this narrative: it’s totally made up:

  • The Obama Administration required language in the initial 2009 General Assembly resolution acknowledging “national constitutional protections on private ownership, exclusively within their territory.”
  • The State Department rules out provisions restricting constitutional rights and sovereign control of domestic weapons regulation in its ATT “Red Lines.”
  • Since the Supreme Court has held that individual gun ownership is constitutionally protected, and international law cannot override the Constitution, the U.N. could not take American guns even if the Administration and Senate wanted it to.
  • As Naval Postgraduate School arms expert Diana Wueger points out, the ATT isn’t even intended to regulate domestic arms: “The Arms Trade Treaty will not regulate domestic sales of firearms. Its focus is instead on the control of the legal, international trade in conventional weapons.”
  • Conspirators seize on a recently leaked U.N. paper’s suggestion that “arms trade must therefore be regulated in ways that would…minimize the risk of misuse of legally owned weapons.” Even setting aside the ambiguity of the line in question, the paper (inaccurately portrayed as part of a press kit) is playing no role in the negotiations over the text of the ATT. ThinkProgress confirmed this with U.N. Office for Disarmament Affairs Information Officer Ewan Buchanan, who said “The negotiation is being done by the member states of the U.N., not by the Secretariat. It was an information paper that does not form any part of the negotiation process and the member states of the U.N. don’t have it.”

Dobbs and Lott were shamelessly pushing the same points in the clip above and claiming President Obama and Hillary Clinton want to do an end around on the 2nd Amendment. As I said, Dobbs was terrible when he was still on CNN. He's done nothing but go downhill since with amping up the fearmongering, racism and hatred for President Obama and with the sheer amount of lies he's willing to tell. There was a time, years ago, I used to have an iota of respect for this man. Those days are long... long gone. He's an utter, angry, cynical, race-baiting, lying disgrace who really has let his hatred get the better of him. I'm sure the NRA and the gun lobby are quite proud of Dobbs' propaganda he ran for them this Friday evening. Bravo Lou.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon