Amnesty International is a group that supposedly opposes dictatorships and human rights abuses and abusers throughout the world. They’re the people who speak up about genocidal madmen and countless other forms of evil that take place throughout the world.

Well, the group’s Inter-American Commission will take a look at the United States. In particular, gun violence in the U.S.

The hearing was requested by Amnesty International USA, the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University School of Law, the Center for American Progress, and Instituto Igarape to examine how gun violence in the United States affects the Organization of American States member countries. The hearing is a follow-up to Amnesty International’s testimony before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Bogotá, Colombia in February 2018 laying out the ways in which the U.S. is failing to fulfill its human rights obligations to address gun violence. “This hearing will bring much needed international attention to the urgent and escalating problem of gun violence in the United States, which has become so prevalent that it amounts to a human rights crisis,” said Ernest Coverson, campaign manager of the End Gun Violence campaign at Amnesty International USA. “The ability to go about one’s daily life in security and dignity, free from fear, is at the very cornerstone of human rights and it’s well past the time that the United States government reformed its laws and policies to enact gun control.” The hearing will examine the impact on survivors of the U.S government’s failure to address gun violence, and the commission will hear testimony from individuals who have survived gun violence in the context of domestic violence, children involved in gun homicides, as well as individuals from disproportionately impacted communities of color and others across U.S. borders who are living with the life-long repercussions of the government’s inadequate regulation of firearms.

What the commission won’t be doing is listening to any of the millions of Americans who have defended their own lives thanks to having had a firearm. They also won’t be hearing about those who have been hurt or killed because someone wasn’t able to have a firearm due to gun control laws.

None of that will get a mention, primarily because Amnesty International doesn’t care about any of that.

However, if this organization says they want to stand for human rights, they need to understand that perfect safety is not a human right. It’s unachievable. Instead, a human right is empowering people to take their own safety into their own hands. That means owning firearms.

Take a look at the worst human rights abusers in history. Do you know what you find in all of those cases? A lack of private gun ownership. Even if the dictator didn’t ban guns himself, someone before them did, which allowed them to subjugate the population and commit their atrocities without fear of repercussion.

Gun ownership is a human right. It’s the most fundamental human right. It’s the only real way to protect any other right, when you get right down to it.

Further, while there are issues with violence in our inner cities, I find it ironic that the United States was singled out about the same time as eight Americans–three mothers and five children–were killed in a crossfire between two violent Mexican drug cartels. Where’s the hearing on that?

Whatever.

The truth is that Amnesty International is pushing to set up a framework that will lead to more human rights abuses here in the United States if they get their way. It’s imperative that we don’t let them get it.