This topic
sounds familiar...
From the "current" article which is actually from 2011:
"
While the terms have yet to be made public, if passed by the U.N. and ratified by our Senate, it will
almost certainly force the U.S. to:"
Speculation. It has to be since there is no treaty, yet. Nor are there yet terms which could be made public. Nice fear mongering there, don't you think?
Latest "action" on this by the UN was to decide to define what the treaty should address and what scope it should have. You can read the report yourself (
http://www.un.org/disarmament/convarms/ATTPrepCom/Documents/PrepCom4%20Documents/PrepCom%20Report_E_20120307.pdf). The real action begins in New York in July.
Since we're speculating... I think they'll decide that the US's existing federal system, which already tracks small arms from point of manufacture to point of sale, is more than adequate to prevent the illicit, black market transfer of firearms from the US to areas of the world where they can do societal harm. They obviously do no societal harm here in the U.S. when compared to Somalia, Syria, Afghanistan, Mexico, etc.
I also speculate that the NRA will continue to use this to drum up support based on the fear that the UN is a'comin' fer our guns. I further speculate that NRA members who actually read the reports and UN discussions about the treaty, rather than the Right Wing summaries, will be somewhat confused as it doesn't really seem to mandate any changes in the way the US handles conventional arms under the scope of the treaty, which include tanks, military vehicles, artillery systems, military aircraft and helicopters, naval vessels, missiles and missile systems, and (finally) small arms, light weapons and the ammunition for all of the above.
Folks, we already have pretty strict control of conventional arms as defined by this treaty plan. The federal background checks already meet the qualifications suggested by the plan. If you need proof try buying a machine gun, silencer, an RPG or a hand grenade.
edit: whoops. Fixed PDF link...