Not to be outdone by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in calling for civilian disarmament, the United Nations is taking advantage of the Charleston shootings to join the chorus of confiscators.

In a statement issued on June 19 by the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent (yes, that actually exists), committee chairwoman Mireille Fanon Mendes-France demanded that “urgent measures must be taken to prevent gun violence.” Making a point of distinguishing this crime for its effect on “the security of Afro-Americans,” the UN group sent their “heartfelt condolences to the people of the United States of America.”

If the United Nations has its way, there will much more to mourn about in the United States of America. As part of the global effort to grant monopoly control of weapons of all sizes to UN-approved “state actors,” the Arms Trade Treaty mandates the forcible disarmament of all others.

The scheme was endorsed in the “name of the people of the United States” by Secretary of State John Kerry on September 25, 2013.

“I am very pleased to have signed this treaty here today. I signed it because President Obama knows that from decades of efforts that at any time that we work with — cooperatively to address the illicit trade in conventional weapons, we make the world a safer place. And this treaty is a significant step in that effort,” Kerry said at the signing ceremony.

Promptly, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon thanked Kerry and Obama for their complicity in consolidating UN control over weapons and ammunition: "Today, a number of countries signed the Arms Trade Treaty, pushing the total number of signatures to more than half of all Member States."

The secretary-general, as the depository of the treaty, welcomes every signature to this important pact. At the same time, it is of particular significance that the largest arms exporting country in the world, the United States, is now also among those countries who have committed themselves to a global regulation of the arms trade. He believes this will contribute to efforts to reduce insecurity and suffering for people on all continents. He calls upon other countries to follow suit.

Since the date of the treaty's signing by Kerry, a number of senators have warned President Obama not to try to enforce the terms of the agreement by use of his infamous “pen and phone.”

In 2013, Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sent the president a letter reminding him that:

As you know, Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution requires the United States Senate to provide its advice and consent before a treaty becomes binding under United States law. The Senate has not yet provided its advice and consent, and may not provide such consent. As a result, the Executive Branch is not authorized to take any steps to implement the treaty.

President Obama knows this and he also knows that in March of that year, 53 senators voted “to uphold Second Amendment rights and prevent the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.”

Americans know something, too. They know that this administration has never failed to use every murderous act of armed violence as a pretext for tyranny. From Newtown to the Navy Yard to the latest atrocity committed at a church in Charleston, President Obama has issued scores of executive orders directly violating the Constitution’s explicit prohibition on the infringement of the right to keep and bear arms.

In a statement made to The Blaze, Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina pointed to this predilection on the part of the president and bolstered her position, saying that “South Carolina has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation.”

As reported by The Blaze, “South Carolina is one of five states that have an outright ban on open carry firearms.” Adding, “South Carolina’s concealed carry law requires permit applicants to undergo a background check, submitting two sets of fingerprints, and take a state-approved class on gun safety before passing a written test and a live firing range test.”

Regardless of the rigorous background checks to which one must submit in South Carolina before being permitted by the government to purchase a gun, the question remains: Why should any government possess the power to disarm its citizens? Do I have the power to disarm my neighbor if I believe him to be “dangerous?” Certainly not. If I tried to go over and take his weapon I’d likely be arrested for trespass and assault. Where, then, does government — that is nothing more than the collective expression of the people’s natural right of self-defense — get the power to make legal for them what would be illegal for an individual?

While the UN’s Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent may be correct in calling the barbarous act committed at the Emanuel African Methodist Church a “racist crime motivated by prejudice,” nothing in the words or executive orders of President Obama would have prevented it from happening.

The same goes for the Arms Trade Treaty. The secretary-general, the secretary of state, and every presidential candidate can claim that they want to talk about additional gun regulations out of consideration for the safety of innocent people, but what they really intend to do is take liberty from innocent people and leave those people defenseless to do anything about it.

Arguably, the Arms Trade Treaty would become the law of the United States if the Senate were to ratify the treaty.

While that is the process that the Constitution establishes for the implementation of treaties, fundamental principles of construction and constitutional law dictate that no treaty that violates the Constitution can become the supreme law of the land.

In the case of the UN’s Arms Trade Treaty, there is no doubt that regardless of presidential signatures or congressional consent, this treaty cannot pass constitutional muster and therefore will never be the valid law of the land.

Unless, of course, Americans once again acquiesce to President Obama’s assumption of illegal authority and relinquish their rights and weapons regardless of the reasons they should not do so.

This nightmare scenario took a giant leap toward reality on Thursday, June 18 when 218 members of Congress voted to grant the president “trade promotion authority (TPA),” the so-called “fast track.”

With this new power, the president is free to unilaterally issue international executive orders that are binding on the United States, so long as those orders concern trade.

Is there any question whether President Obama will use this new power over “trade” to implement the provisions of the UN’s Arms Trade Treaty? Somewhere, perhaps, a teleprompter is being loaded with a speech mourning the death of so many innocent men and women and promising to “heal” the country by making it more difficult for people to “own, buy, sell, trade, or transfer” (the language from the ATT) firearms.

There is not a person of sound mind who doesn’t deplore and denounce crimes such as that committed in Charleston. Senseless brutality leaves us all scarred and diminishes our collective virtue.

Wise men, however, would also recognize that statements such as that issued by the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent demanding that “urgent measures” be taken to reduce gun violence will — as with all similar statements made since the establishment of the modern state — have no effect on violence.

It will, however, leave Americans unable to defend themselves against the most violent armed force ever created: government.