Snopes.com rates UN treaty e-mail as “scare-ware”

A viral e-mail circulating throughout the web holds that there are a group of Maine patriots planning to begin arresting thousands of influential people.

Who will arrest them? For what? Under what law? They don't say, but they claim the “Pentagon” is just ecstatic about their plans. The Pentagon is a big place. No one in particular is named as an avid supporter of this vague plan.(click here to see the e-mail)

None of those questions are addressed in a 3-hour YouTube.com production or in a broadside .pdf produced by the American National Militia.

Their complaint seems to be the U.N. Arms Transfer Treaty, the subject of a convention at the New York headquarters of the UN this week that will culminate in a ceremonial signing of the treaty. on Friday.

The agreement, if adopted, would impose some restrictions on the export of conventional arms to other nation states. President Bush opposed this treaty, preferring national laws to regulate international commerce in firearms.(click here to read a UN report)

Its detractors – including the NRA – claim it's a mechanism to “get around” the 2^nd Amendment.

The resolution explicitly states that it is “the exclusive right of States to regulate internal transfers of arms and national ownership, including through constitutional protections on private ownership.”

President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton are said to favor this treaty. Ratification of the agreement would require 2/3 of Senators to agree to it.

As of September 14, 2011, 58 US Senators (45 Republicans and 13 Democrats) have expressed their opposition to an ATT that would limit the Second Amendment rights of US citizens.