IANSA

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The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) is an international non-governmental organisation recognized by the United Nations. [1] IANSI is based in London and has over 700 member organisations worldwide, working to stop the proliferation and misuse of small arms and light weapons. Its director is Rebecca Peters.

IANSA describes key issues in its work as including public health, women and guns, child soldiers, and trade controls. It also describes a range of regional issues around the world, including drug violence in South American countries.

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[edit] United Nations

IANSA was involved in lobbying the 2001 United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms which produced an agreed programme of action[2]. A UN Review Conference ended in July 2006 [5] without further agreement.

IANSA, part of the Control Arms Campaign, promotes an international treaty regulating the conventional arms trade. A resolution to begin work on this Arms Trade Treaty will be voted on in the UN GA First Committee in the last week of October.

The US National Rifle Association accused IANSA of using the treaty as the first step in a ban on private gun ownership in the United States, [3] [4] and also of making it easier for the world's 50 dictatorships to oppress their own citizens. [5] The Gun Owners of America lobbying organisation has been equally vocal in its criticism of IANSA.

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ DPI NGO Section
  2. ^ UN Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons, July 2001 accessed at [1] September 6, 2006
  3. ^ "Don’t take our word for it--listen to her on how the U.N.’s global gun ban treaty is only the first step in a calculated strategy to ban, confiscate and destroy guns and bury our hunting and shooting traditions forever." [2]
  4. ^ "IANSA’s long-term objective is a worldwide gun ban, which would be enforced against the U.S." [3]
  5. ^ "What these countries and the U.N. will never acknowledge is that the vast majority of firearm atrocities around the world aren’t committed by the individual criminals…the vast majority of wanton killings around the globe are committed by governments—the members of the United Nations themselves." [4]

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