PolitiFact: Craig James Incorrect about Treaty
U.S. Senate candidate Craig James got a standing ovation from a crowd in East Texas after he made false claims about a firearms treaty. Photo courtesy flickr.com/photos/bexarrepublican. Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Voters will choose a nominees to succeed Texas U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in Tuesday’s primaries. On the Republican side, those aspirants include a former ESPN analyst who fired off a claim about President Obama.
KUT’s Nathan Bernier spoke with Gardener Selby, of the Austin-American Statesman’s PolitiFact Texas fact-checking outfit, about the statement made by Craig James.
Our reporter heard [Craig] James warn, “Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are negotiating with the United Nations about doing a treaty that will ban the use of firearms.” In fact, he got a standing ovation after urging people to pay close mind to this. So we paid our own close mind.
Obama, back in ’09 I believe, indicated the United States could be open to a treaty. This treaty though, would regulate international trade in conventional arms – tanks, helicopters, missiles. There’s going to be a conference in July involving the United Nations.
And what’s potentially in it about restricting firearms back at home, so to speak?
It’s not an issue on the table, as far as we can tell. Notably, the administration has said it won’t agree to provisions that would alter or diminish current rights to manufacture, assemble, possess, transfer or purchase firearms.
This claim runs so substantially counter to reality – it’s ridiculous.
Read more on PolitiFact Texas.
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