Crap! I'm at work and YouTube is blocked. Is there a transcript available?
Found this on th IANSA website. The videos are also avaliable on the NRA website. Don't let your Blood Pressure rise too much:
IANSA V THE NRA
This is an edited version of a debate between the Director of IANSA, Rebecca Peters, and the CEO of the National Rifle Association of America, Wayne LaPierre, aired on US pay TV from October 20-30.
Rebecca Peters’ opening statement:
Ladies and gentlemen, I represent IANSA, the International Action Network on Small Arms. It’s the global movement against gun violence, a network of some 600 organisations working against the proliferation and misuse of guns around the world.
Our network consists of women’s groups, churches, public health agencies, academics, human rights campaigners, humanitarian workers, victims support groups, lawyers – people who would prefer not to spend their time thinking about guns, but whose work and lives are so badly affected by the proliferation of these weapons that they have taken on this cause in addition to their other commitments.
The involvement of people from so many different sectors means that IANSA’s thinking and action are grounded not only in research and information, but also in the direct experience of our members on the frontline. Whether they’re in the slums of Manila, the marketplaces of Kenya or Uganda or the battlefields of the Democratic Republic of Congo, that is where the destructive reality of gun proliferation can be seen.
Ladies and gentlemen, [the moderator] has said this is a controversial topic that we’re debating tonight. Why is it controversial? Because it’s literally a question of life or death. Hundreds of thousands of lives are lost prematurely each year, ended by gunshots from people who are angry, vengeful, jealous, drunk or careless or corrupt or simply abusive.
Most of these deaths occur in the developing world. For example, 36,000 people die from gunshot wounds each year in Brazil. But the developed world is not immune, and especially not the USA, which has 28,000 gun deaths each year, including 11,500 gun homicides.
Unfortunately, many members of IANSA have personally experienced the pain and loss caused by gun violence, and some of them are here tonight. Apart from deaths, millions more lives are devastated by injuries and grief caused by gun violence.
For every person killed by small arms three more are seriously wounded. Those injuries are especially disabling in the developing world. One of our members who works in the rehabilitation of gun victims in Guatemala has pointed out that poor families there can never afford to buy a wheelchair. So a young person paralysed from a gunshot wound is doomed to spend all of their time at home except for the odd occasion when a strong uncle or cousin is available to carry them outside.
Gun violence is expensive. Some countries in Latin America are now spending up to 5 percent of their gross domestic product on the consequences of violence, and gun violence is the most expensive violence there is.
One of our members, a surgeon from Uganda, sees firsthand the impact of gun violence. She talks about the frustration of trying to save the lives of gunshot victims in rudimentary hospitals and being faced with the dilemma of diverting medical attention and resources and possibly the blood supply from a sick child to a person wounded by guns. Most gun victims are civilians, especially young men, who should be in the most productive phase of their lives.
But women and children are affected in particular ways as well. In conflict and post conflict zones; from Sudan to Afghanistan to the former Yugoslavia, sexual violence has become a weapon of war. In non conflict zones women are always at risk of domestic violence, but a gun in the house makes it much more likely that a woman will die.
The widespread availability of guns has given rise to the phenomenon of child soldiers and child drug traffickers because from Sierra Leone to Brazil to Columbia and Sri Lanka, because guns are now so cheap and light and easily available an eight-year-old can be trained to use them in battle.
Guns are involved in human rights abuses; in Liberia, in Nepal, in Iraq and El Salvador guns obstruct peacekeeping activities. Just this year in June we saw Médecins Sans Frontières pull out of Afghanistan because five of its humanitarian aid workers have been shot dead there.
Guns hinder development, investment and tourism. Countries that depend on tourism can see their economies crippled by incidence of armed violence, and aid projects have been frozen or canceled in many countries because of insecurity. That’s why the aid that was promised to rebuild Afghanistan has been so slow in coming because of insecurity there due to the proliferation of guns.
So what is this global proliferation of guns? There are about 640 million guns in the world; that’s one for every ten people on Earth, two thirds of those guns are owned by private citizens. 640 million, that’s more guns than cars, for example, on Earth.
The large number of guns points to the other reason why tonight’s topic is controversial, because it’s a question of money. The manufacture and sale of guns and ammunition is an industry worth $7.5 billion. About half the countries in the world produce guns and every country in the world buys them.
The biggest exporter of guns is the USA, but Europe; both Western and Eastern, make a huge contribution to the problem. Add to this the millions of guns released on to the private market, thanks to the ending of the Cold War and the dismantling of those huge armies there, and you can see why the problem has become so immense.
Guns don’t respect borders. In East Africa, in the Balkans, in Central America, one country’s gun laws can be undermined by the next country. Both Mexico and Canada report that the majority of guns used in crime across the border have come from the USA.
Guns move not only between countries, but also between conflicts. Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, two members of ours, have revealed that guns used in the Liberian conflict under Charles Taylor were then supplied to the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone. Guns are remarkably durable. They outlive the relationship between the original buyer and seller. They retain their value because they keep on killing. How’s all this regulated? We have a patchwork of laws in different countries, some countries with almost no laws and no international regulation. In the past few years the global community has begun to recognise the dimensions of this problem, the disproportionate damage that results from the proliferation of these weapons.
Short-term profits have begun to look less important compared with regional instability, humanitarian crises and terrorism. Governments, international organisations and a growing movement of civil society organisations are saying stop, put the brakes on, the arms trade is out of control.
So around the world countries are tightening their gun laws. Internally on the manufacture and sale and possession of guns, and also reviewing their international policies on exports and brokering of guns. In the past 10 years the gun laws have been reformed in a number of countries, including Australia, Canada, Germany, the UK., in Lebanon, in Turkey, in South Africa, in Guatemala and Brazil, just to name a few.
There’s a constant battle for gun control going on in the US, of course, where the gun laws are different in all 50 states, but in general the movement is toward tighter regulation of guns. And we’re seeing results. It takes time for the effective gun law reforms to become visible; but there are many factors influencing violence in different countries, but we can see the results now.
In my country, Australia, for example, we overhauled the gun laws in 1996 after we had the world’s worst shooting massacre there. We hold a record in Australia that no one would wish to break. 35 people killed in the course of one massacre.
For many years it had been obvious that the gun laws needed reform. And after that tragedy we got it, including national uniform gun laws, a ban on semiautomatic rifles and shotguns, and a buyback of 640,000 of those guns. We saw gun homicides dropped sharply after the new laws came in, and by 2002 the gun homicide rate was at its lowest since 1950.
Since 1996, there’s been more than a 40 percent reduction in all forms of gun death. Nowadays, Americans are 16 times more likely to be killed with a gun than Australians. In 2002, Australia had 50 gun murders compared with 11,500 in the US.
Canada also tightened its gun laws in the mid-90s and also saw the gun homicide rate drop steadily. It was 20 percent lower in 2002 than in 1995. Nowadays, Americans are eight times more likely to be killed with a gun than Canadians are. In 2002, Canada had 150 gun murders compared with 11,500 in the US.
Here in the UK the reforms to the gun laws have revealed something about criminals’ taste in guns. The UK banned handguns in 1997, except for some handguns that were deemed to be air guns or replicas. Low and behold we now find that those guns make up the largest category of guns used in crime in Britain. In other words, criminals are taking advantage of a loophole, using the guns that were poorly controlled by the law. By the way, Americans are 40 times more likely to be killed by guns than Britons. In 2003, Britain had 68 gun murders compared with 11,500 in the USA.
The UN Secretary General, Kofi Anan has said, “Even in the societies not beset by civil war, the easy availability of small arms has contributed to violence and political instability, and damaged development prospects and imperiled human security in every way. The member states of the United Nations have agreed on a program of action to reduce small arms.
It has some very, very moderate measures. Countries agree that there will be an offence of criminal possession of guns, for example. The discussion over international regulation of guns is extremely robust, and the gun lobby is part of that. I’ve seen at the UN conferences on small arms the gun lobby at work, and I have to say that in my observation the US National Rifle Association wields a very high level of influence with the US government.
And this may be one reason why the US has taken a different position from nearly all other governments in the UN small arms process. For example, the US has refused to allow a provision that would prevent governments from supplying guns to insurgent groups and other non state actors. That meeting was held two months before September 11, 2001 when the Taliban, a group of non state actors, which had been armed by the US Government for years, launched its campaign that provoked the present war on terror.
I wonder whether the US would have taken the same position in support of arming non state actors if the program of action had been drawn up a few months later than September 11, 2001.
Question and answer session:
Moderator: Rebecca, do you believe that US citizens should be forced to obey a United Nations gun ban treaty?
Rebecca Peters: Well, first of all there’s no such thing as a United Nations treaty. A treaty is not made by the United Nations, but by a group of governments. The UN small arms process consists of governments who’ve come together on what is to be done about this global problem. The UN does not exist separate from governments.
And second, the topic of discussion isn’t about a gun ban. We’re talking about taking some moderate measures to reduce the illicit traffic in guns. And I was pleased to hear that Mr LaPierre agrees that bad guys should be disarmed. Traffickers are among the very worst guys there are. International treaties are the usual way to deal with weapons. We have treaties on nuclear, on chemical, on biological weapons.
That’s because countries have recognised the destructive potential of those weapons and they want to hold governments and manufacturers accountable. Guns are the only weapons left outside of international treaties, and these are the weapons killing hundreds of thousands of people. So yes, the US should acknowledge that it is part of the world; it’s not exempt from the world’s problems. In fact, it contributes disproportionately to many of the world’s problems, and it should cooperate with other UN member states to solve those problems.
Moderator: Thanks Rebecca. Wayne, that sounds perfectly natural. What’s your response?
Wayne LaPierre: Well, my response is the Constitution of the United States. Our Supreme Court has ruled that no treaty supersedes the authority of the United States Constitution. In 1957, in Reed v. Culvert, the Supreme Court said “No agreement with a foreign nation can confer power on the Congress or on any branch of government, which is free of the restraints of the Constitution.”
Where Ms Peters is headed with this -- Ms Peters is in a UN conference in 2006 to try to write a treaty basically banning civilian ownership of firearms. She doesn’t like our Bill of Rights. She doesn’t like our Second Amendment any more than she likes our First Amendment where she has said, and I quote back in 4-4-2000, “The First Amendment in the U.S. basically entitles anyone to any lies they want as long as it’s in the name of politics.” “She doesn’t like our freedoms; First Amendment, Second Amendment, and we’re not going to let Ms Peters or the United Nations take them away.
Moderator: So really, Rebecca, you’re against the Constitution of the United States.
Rebecca Peters: I’m referring to national human rights. I’m for global standards applying across the world. You know, I recently reread George Orwell’s Animal Farm where one of the commandments there was “All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” It seems to me that the National Rifle Association would say all people on Earth are created equal, but some people, Americans, are created more equal than others.
No, Americans are people like everyone else on Earth. They should abide by the same rules as everyone else.
Moderator: What proposals does the NRA have to stop the flood of guns into unstable regions of the world?
Wayne LaPierre: Well, I reject the term “flood of guns.” What you have is a flood of demand by good people that are being terrorised. The best thing that can happen in unstable parts of the world, and I’m not trying to export this everywhere, but I believe it, is a free population is allowed to embrace American Constitutional freedom in the Bill of Rights. Free people elect good government.
They create stable systems of laws. They see to their security. In Britain, in the United Kingdom in World War II they were under attack. They asked for guns. You had a demand of good people for firearms. The United States and the NRA provided them and we saved freedom. So what you have are good and bad confronting each other all over the world. And all too often bad people are doing evil. The good people want to be protected, and they have a right to own a firearm. And I believe every citizen of the world has that basic human right.
Moderator: But it seems a powerful argument. Good people are allowed to protect themselves.
Rebecca Peters: Well, when you think of some of the regions of the world where our members are working, saying that the answer is to provide more guns into those regions makes no sense at all. Many of our members are democracy campaigners. They’re specifically working against corruption in government. They speak out against corruption. Many of them have been attacked by government representatives for their views.
It doesn’t help them to have guns. The way to get freedom, the way to have democracy, is to have stronger institutions and the rule of law. It is not to have, for example, a free and independent judiciary, independent from the political process, to have programs to reform the police forces. Those are the institutions that a society is built on. It’s not going to be up to each individual person to be like a hero in a movie defending against this threat to freedom.
Moderator: So the threat to freedom is guns?
Wayne LaPierre: No, the threat to freedom is bad people, bad governments doing evil, and the good people need to protect themselves. And I reject this idea that guns have little legs and are moving all over the world. It’s ridiculous. It’s criminals, it’s bad governments, and the good people ought to be able to protect themselves, and it’s the good people seeking protection is where the demand comes from.
Moderator: Rebecca, now with violent crime skyrocketing in countries that have banned guns, should individuals have the right to defend themselves with firearms?
Rebecca Peters: Well, that’s a sweeping and inaccurate statement. Where to begin? Very few countries have banned guns, although some countries have recently reformed their laws as I’ve said. It’s simply not true that violent crime has increased in countries where guns have been regulated.
We can talk back and forth about statistics, but, it’s not true. It isn’t true. Australia is not in the grip of a crime wave. People in Britain are not cowering behind locked doors. Even if you are -- I’m not sure how many times, how likely you are to be mugged on the streets of London. Maybe you are six times more likely to be mugged on the streets of London than on the streets of an American city. But I tell you what, there’s 68 gun murders in Britain each year and 11,500 in the U.S. I know where I would feel safer.
Moderator: So those statistics seem to go against the fact of violent crime in countries which have banned guns.