[DRAFT] Repeal GAR #399; titled Resp. In Transferring Arms

[Princess Rainbow Sparkles]

Repeal GAR#399; titled "Responsibility in Transferring Arms

~*~*~*~ Link to Target: GAR #399 ~*~*~*~

The Member Nations of the World Assembly:

Appalled by the horrific and devastating violence committed with firearms, whether inside or outside our personal nations;

Recognizing that the citizens of every Member Nation deserve protection against purely internal firearm violence just as they deserve protection against purely internal slavery, food insecurity, torture, substandard wages, insufficient healthcare, and the many other topics which have been and continue to be fair game for debate in this Assembly;

Turning to GAR #399, titled "Responsibility in Transferring Arms," Part 5 - and seeing that it broadly restricts this Assembly from pursuing resolutions to address national firearm policy and the firearm violence that may follow, with three very limited exceptions that will be dealt with below;

Recognizing that the first exception merely allowed GAR #399 to avoid conflicting with laws that were already in existence when it came up for vote - the first exception does not allow for any amount of future General Assembly action under any circumstances;

Recognizing that the third exception only allows future resolutions that would make it easier to acquire firearms;

Recognizing that the second exception only allows for future regulations on the use and sale of firearms in the following very narrow circumstances: "future regulations which seek to prevent firearms from being sold to or used by individuals that pose a danger of performing imminent lawless action;"

Convinced that the second exception - the only exception GAR #399 allows for any future action on heightened regulation - is wholly inadequate for the following reasons:

1. It does not allow for resolutions addressing the manufacture of firearms - which with modern and future technology could make firearms safer for everyone;
2. It does not allow for resolutions enabling the victims of firearm violence, or their families, to seek redress in court from the gunman, the person or company that furnished the gun, the manufacturer, and any others who negligently or willfully enabled the gun violence;
3. It only allows addressing dangers that are "imminent" (a word that means "ready to take place" or "happening soon") - disallowing resolutions establishing preventative measures against dangers that are likely to materialize someday, but are not yet imminent;

Resolved that the second exception is simply too narrow to allow meaningful progress addressing firearm violence: it does not allow for the wide range of new ideas that the future might bring and it stifles the debate needed to sharpen and develop those ideas (by ruling them out from the start);

Convinced that any good GAR #399 accomplishes is outweighed by the way it stifles debate and prevents action on legitimate measures this Assembly could take to address firearms violence;

Convinced that any good GAR #399 did can be recreated without blocking legitimate discourse;

Resolved to restore this Assembly's natural and appropriate right to fully debate this important social issue;

Now, therefore, the General Assembly hereby REPEALS GAR #399, the resolution titled "Responsibility in Transferring Arms"

[Attempted Socialism]

I'm not sure your "convinced" clauses 1 and 2 are correct. What in the target points to regulation about manufacture being blocked? And what blocks seeking redress from the gunman, seller, or manufacturer?

[Princess Rainbow Sparkles]

I'm not sure your "convinced" clauses 1 and 2 are correct. What in the target points to regulation about manufacture being blocked? And what blocks seeking redress from the gunman, seller, or manufacturer?

Placing requirements on the way firearms are manufactured within a nation is an element of national firearm policy. Allowing lawsuits in a nation for harms caused by the use of firearms is an element of national firearm policy. GAR #399 says: " Assures member nations of the exclusive right to determine purely internal arms trading and firearm policy [except for these three exceptions]." Regulating manufacture of firearms is not an exception. Regulating lawsuits around firearms is not an exception. Ergo, GAR #399 blocks resolutions affecting those matters of firearm policy.

If you can think of a better or stronger way to make that point clear, I would appreciate the help.

[Tinhampton]

I am very sceptical that references to "our personal nations" in resolutions are legal. You cannot refer to the "personal" acts of a nation in The Other Chamber with good reason.

"slavery, food insecurity, torture, substandard wages, [and] insufficient healthcare" are either not "purely internal" matters (many slaves are victims of human trafficking; famines can result from international blockades or sanctions as well as from faltering domestic yields) or constitute such universally grave violations of human dignity that they ought to be prohibited. Do you have a compelling argument for why the World Assembly ought to regulate "firearms violence," other than "the World Assembly can legislate on whatever domestic issues it wants because it legislated on one domestic issue, once"?

What "legitimate measures" do you believe "this Assembly could take to address firearms violence?" I'm not seeing a replacement from you anywhere. Nor is it illegal to draft - and encourage debate on - a replacement resolution that is currently illegal for duplicating or contradicting another resolution which you intend to repeal, merely to submit the replacement before the repeal passes.

[Princess Rainbow Sparkles]

I am very sceptical that references to "our personal nations" in resolutions are legal. You cannot refer to the "personal" acts of a nation in The Other Chamber with good reason.

Thank you for flagging that. I can of course change that easily to "our respective nations" to avoid any potential illegality.

"slavery, food insecurity, torture, substandard wages, [and] insufficient healthcare" are either not "purely internal" matters (many slaves are victims of human trafficking; famines can result from international blockades or sanctions as well as from faltering domestic yields) or constitute such universally grave violations of human dignity that they ought to be prohibited. Do you have a compelling argument for why the World Assembly ought to regulate "firearms violence," other than "the World Assembly can legislate on whatever domestic issues it wants because it legislated on one domestic issue, once"?

(Aside: What about promotion of bee-keeping, which literally just promotes bee-keeping so people can have honey? What about cultural site preservation, which has the audacity to have an international committee tell member nations what they should do with their own cultural sites! What about your pursuit of a freedom of opinion and belief? So, the WA should tell Member Nations to stop discriminating against people because they believe it's okay to shoot others, but the WA must not do anything to affect Member Nations' firearms policies to stop the actual shooting?)

Anyway, do you really believe that being victimized by firearm violence (or any violence, for that matter) is not a "universally grave violation of human dignity." Frankly, I thought the premise that people deserve protection from firearm violence just like they deserve protection from slavery, poverty, and stomach ulcers was self-evident. I'm happy to include additional arguments about protecting people from violence in all it's forms if you want to propose language on that.

What "legitimate measures" do you believe "this Assembly could take to address firearms violence?" I'm not seeing a replacement from you anywhere. Nor is it illegal to draft - and encourage debate on - a replacement resolution that is currently illegal for duplicating or contradicting another resolution which you intend to repeal, merely to submit the replacement before the repeal passes.

I listed some ideas in the proposal. I do not subscribe to the belief that resolutions inherently require a ready replacement for their good parts before it is appropriate to repeal them for their bad parts.

While I could certainly draft laws dealing with firearm manufacture, lawsuits against reckless gun sellers, prospective protections for vulnerable individuals in vulnerable settings, restrictions on those who have a history of threatening or coercing others, and many other interesting ideas, I am just one person. My most immediate concern is how this blocker has stifled debate in these halls and time-and-again estopped others from pursing their own visions. As I repeatedly point out in my criticism of GAR #399's blocker provision, good ideas for future legitimate gun control measures are snuffed out in their infancy. (Pardon the awful pun, but surely my motivations for this should be clear. I long ago learned to cope with tragedy through gallows humor and diversion).

Edit: I have considered the idea of drafting two or three of the forgoing proposals dealing with firearms manufacture, lawsuits against gun sellers, and background checks for potentially dangerous (but not necessarily "imminently" dangerous) people. But I know (from watching it play out in for other authors) I am likely to get a lack of engagement even from those who might support the idea, with many proponents and opponents alike saying that my efforts are foreclosed by GAR #399 so why bother talking about them. I realize I could respond that I am planning to repeal GAR #399, but many will still decline to engage on the belief that my repeal may fail. And so we come once again to the crux of the problem, the way in which GAR #399 stifles debate.

[Sierra Lyricalia]

"Ambassador, have you the slightest idea how hard it was to get the target passed? This was a project spanning literal years of development and I believe two separate predecessor versions enacted into law before finally achieving something the Assembly could live with in the long term. Even the mild hampering of nations' ability to throw megatonnes of armaments into other people's wars was so controversial that any further WA action on national weapons policy would have been a total non-starter. The language here was deemed acceptable to most sides of the debate and I find it either disingenuous or frankly hubristic beyond comprehension that you imagine a replacement could pass with WA-imposed controls on firearm policy outside of warfare. If you try to drain the dirty bathwater that remains here, I pratically guarantee you'll not catch the baby from going down with it."

"Opposed."

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OOC: Heavens to Betsy, we got rid of the Gun Control category entirely because other than one regulation about keeping children away from them, nobody ever successfully passed a resolution in it. Very few players want the WA setting up regulations on their weapons policy, and not because they're all gun nuts IRL. I'm pretty sure this is not going to go the way you think it will, but if you persist, good luck I suppose.

[The Orwell Society]

Opposed, but an excellent draft nevertheless.

[Princess Rainbow Sparkles]

"Ambassador, have you the slightest idea how hard it was to get the target passed? This was a project spanning literal years of development and I believe two separate predecessor versions enacted into law before finally achieving something the Assembly could live with in the long term. Even the mild hampering of nations' ability to throw megatonnes of armaments into other people's wars was so controversial that any further WA action on national weapons policy would have been a total non-starter. The language here was deemed acceptable to most sides of the debate and I find it either disingenuous or frankly hubristic beyond comprehension that you imagine a replacement could pass with WA-imposed controls on firearm policy outside of warfare. If you try to drain the dirty bathwater that remains here, I pratically guarantee you'll not catch the baby from going down with it."

"Opposed."

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OOC: Heavens to Betsy, we got rid of the Gun Control category entirely because other than one regulation about keeping children away from them, nobody ever successfully passed a resolution in it. Very few players want the WA setting up regulations on their weapons policy, and not because they're all gun nuts IRL. I'm pretty sure this is not going to go the way you think it will, but if you persist, good luck I suppose.

I remember, but it was five years ago that this passed and since then it's been used primarily as a way to squash so many efforts to pursue reasonable gun control measures. For what? An affidavit stating that, for at least one moment in time, an international arms buyer is the final recipient of the arms (never mind what they may later decide to do with them at some point in the future). There's not even a requirement that member nations actually monitor for compliance with that affidavit, by the way. How effective are the scheme's "reasonable evidence to suggest" provisions when no one is even required to monitor what happens with the weapons after delivery...

I could look past the flaws in GAR #399's regulation scheme. In fact, I did look past them; I don't even mention them in this repeal draft! I know some folks were doing their best five years ago in the political climate that then existed. And there's no blocker against someone else coming around to at least try to do more with arms trading if they felt the gumption. The firearms regulation category blocker, on the other hand, is foul and pernicious.

Small wonder the Gun Control category died, after the World Assembly blocked it off and chastised efforts to do work there as illegal contradiction.

Maybe I'll win some hearts and minds with this effort. Maybe I'll just be banging my head into a wall until I get tired and go do something else. But I'm convinced trying to free the community from disabling restraints like this one is the right thing to do.

Opposed, but an excellent draft nevertheless.

Thanks for the compliment.

[Separatist Peoples]

"We oppose this, and will take steps to ensure it does not pass."

[Bears Armed]

(Aside: What about promotion of bee-keeping, which literally just promotes bee-keeping so people can have honey?

<a passing Bear comments:>

That explicitly involved international trade...

... and what do you mean "just so people can have honey"?

[Princess Rainbow Sparkles]

(Aside: What about promotion of bee-keeping, which literally just promotes bee-keeping so people can have honey?

<a passing Bear comments:>

That explicitly involved international trade...

... and what do you mean "just so people can have honey"?

Don't get me wrong! I love Promotion of Bee-keeping. One of the best WA resolutions ever, in my opinion. Sorry to use it for rhetoric, but it's an extremely convenient example when someone suggests that firearms violence might not be an issue worthy of international attention.

Please keep the gift baskets coming!

"We oppose this, and will take steps to ensure it does not pass."

*shrug* Noted. This is not the sort of effort one can simply throw into the WA drafting forum or pop into the proposal queue and hope it will speak for itself. Very casual nations may not understand what the problem is. Certain nations genuinely want to crush debate on the matter. I realize that if I'm serious it will take a ton of politicking.