Former Ambassador John R. Bolton suggested in a speech at the NRA convention that President Barack Obama is laying the foundation to push a multi-faceted gun control agenda if he is reelected in just about 17 months.
Bolton is a former CCRKBA Gun Rights Defender of the Month.
Bolton was U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security during the Bush Administration. Bolton fought successfully against attempts to circumvent Americans’ Second Amendment rights through international agreements.
In his speech Bolton accused the Obama administration of trying to use its own failures in the struggle against Mexican drug cartels as an excuse or pretext for promoting more restrictive gun control on law-abiding American citizens.
“We can understand that, as he (Obama) likes to say, he’s playing the long game, and that ‘leading from behind’ means waiting until he’s elected to a second term when he faces no further political constraints and his true agenda can come to the floor,” declared Bolton. “And I believe right at the top of it is (to) increase gun control at the federal level and at the international level.”
Bolton discussed the collapse of public order in Mexico. He fears that may spread across our southern border. He referred to estimates of 35,000 to 40,000 drug-related homicides in the last five years in Mexico. He noted how dangerous tourist areas have become. He noted also recent State Department tourist warnings.
“If it weren’t for our demand,” he opined, “the supply wouldn’t be there and the drug cartels wouldn’t be there. But the (Obama) administration in as cynical a political move as I think we’ve seen in Washington in a long time – and that’s saying something – is using this crisis in Mexico and the use of drugs in our own country not to combat the illicit narcotics but to use it as a foundation to argue for stricter gun controls at the federal level in our country.”
He said that, “When they do talk about what’s happening in Mexico, our White House follows the Mexican line by saying that the real problem of drug-related violence in Mexico is caused by guns that have come illegally across the United States-Mexican border.”
He said, “This is something that is music to the ears of gun control advocates in this country, because they can say, ‘See, actually, it’s our lack of gun controls, our lack of enforcement, that’s the real cause of the problem. So stiffer gun controls in the United States will solve the problem of drug violence in Mexico and prevent it from coming here.”
While admitting that some guns used by the Mexico gangs come from the U.S., Bolton said “the bulk of those guns” come from corrupt police and military officials or from the international weapons market.
“The idea that what’s going on in Mexico is somehow our fault because of lax gun control laws here is exactly the kind of subterfuge that the Obama administration would like to carry forward in the near future to get stronger gun control laws here,” Bolton said. “It will provide a foundation for their argument (on) why the United States will have to enter into, in short order, the United Nations-negotiated small arms treaty.”