UN-Welcome

Fellow Libertarian activist and Assembly candidate for the 66th Assembly district Nic Leobold hit a homerun with his UN-Welcome protest outside the Secretariat building on Monday morning. Nic organized a loose confederation of RKBA activists henceforth known as Gun Rights Activism Partners to demonstrate against this week's United Nations conference on small arms. The thugs who run the world body (understandably) will feel much more comfortable when only government agents have the right to bear arms.

Turnout at Nic's protest was sparse due to the torrential rain (I made a cameo appearance at the event), but it nonetheless got the attention of the press. In particular, Times columnist Clyde Haberman published a shockingly favorable column. I can't link to it because it's behind the the dreaded TimeSelect firewall, but here's an excerpt:

Their issue was not typical for the plaza, which is named for a secretary general of the United Nations who died in a plane crash in 1961 and received the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously. Most times, demonstrators there demand things like freedom for Tibet or justice for Palestinians or fairness for Israel or nukes for no one.

Very few go there to talk about how guns are good for you.

"Crime goes down the more that citizens are armed," said Nic Leobold, an organizer of this mini-rally. And don't fool yourself, he said: human rights are very much at stake.

"The right to defend oneself - that's the epitome of human rights," said Mr. Leobold, who lives in the East Village and plans to run, not for the first time, for the State Assembly on the Libertarian Party line. "Gun rights," he said, "are the best litmus test of where you stand on individual rights and ownership. It's the clearest litmus test that I know of.

"What led him and his mates to the plaza was a conference that began yesterday at the United Nations, part of a campaign to stop the illegal trade worldwide in handguns, rifles, grenades, light missiles and other weapons defined as "small arms." A key phrase there is "illegal trade."

Yeah, right, the protesters said. If you buy that line, you're probably gullible enough to buy an East River bridge. The true goal, they said, is to eliminate everyone's right to bear arms.

"Tyrannical politicians thrive on gun control laws," said Ralph J. Rubinek, a Staten Island man who identified himself as chief of public affairs for a group called Gun Owners of America. "In the end," he said, "only tyrants and the very criminals they seek to disarm will have all the guns, and no lives will be saved."

Mr. Leobold elaborated. "All the major genocides of the 20th century," he said, "were preceded by gun confiscation. So the politicians are the only ones who have guns, and they have total control."

Way to go, Nic!