This seems like the appropriate day* to unveil a proposal I have for a new WTO agreement on trade and gun rights. Given what is already covered by WTO rules, I don't see why it should be controversial.
Recall that the TRIPS Agreement protects intellectual property rights, but only the "trade-related aspects" of those rights, according to its title. Similarly, my agreement is not about gun rights per se. Rather, it is only the trade-related aspects of those rights. Clearly, the amount of gun imports and exports would increase if there were stronger rights protections.
The preamble to the TRIPS Agreement says: "Desiring to reduce distortions and impediments to international trade, and taking into account the need to promote effective and adequate protection of intellectual property rights, and to ensure that measures and procedures to enforce intellectual property rights do not themselves become barriers to legitimate trade." The equivalent for my trade and gun rights agreement would be something like this: "Desiring to reduce distortions and impediments to international trade, and taking into account the need to promote effective and adequate protection of gun rights, and to ensure that measures and procedures to enforce gun rights do not themselves become barriers to legitimate trade." So you can see, my agreement is clearly just about the trade-related aspects of gun rights. It takes no position on the importance of gun rights themselves. (Although it should be noted that many people say that intellectual property is not really "property" or a "right," but rather, a "privilege." By contrast, the right to a gun is one of the core individual rights of the leading rights promoting country in the world.)
In terms of the substance, I don't think you can get any clearer than what's in the second amendment of the U.S. Constitution: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." That language could be adopted directly in my agreement. Or the agreement could just incorporate the second amendment by reference.
Finally, it's always good to have an acronym that rolls off the tongue. If we call the agreement, "The Agreement on Trade Related Interests in Gun Rights," that gets us to TRIGR, pronounced just like "trigger" (you know, the part of the gun you pull to make the bullet come out).
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* Oh, is it April 1? I hadn't noticed!
