Only on Fox News would a U.N. arms treaty designed to prevent extremists from getting guns be presented as a kind of Machiavellian scheme by the Obama administration to subjugate American rights to some world power. And only on Fox would a legal analyst like Judge Andrew Napolitano repeatedly give such scare tactics credence at the same time that he repeatedly pointed out the very improbability of the paranoid scenario.

As Media Matters noted several months ago, the treaty just signed by Secretary of State John Kerry does not subjugate U.S. gun laws to any other authority:

The treaty’s actual language clearly explains that it does not dictate or impact nations’ domestic affairs. The treaty’s draft preamble says that a State party to this treaty “reaffirm[s] the sovereign right of any State to regulate and control conventional arms exclusively within its territory, pursuant to its own legal or constitutional systems.”

Furthermore, the U.S. Department of State laid out “red lines” that the final treaty must not cross in order to ensure U.S support, including “restrictions on civilian possession or trade of firearms otherwise permitted by law or protected by the U.S. Constitution” or infringements upon “sovereign control” of domestic gun laws.

That was a point that Fox’s Judge Andrew Napolitano originally made in his analysis on Fox & Friends this morning but that turned out to be merely a pause on his way to gratuitous hate mongering.

Napolitano told the Curvy Couch Crew (none of whom seems to have done a lick of research beyond digging up right-wing talking points), that the treaty is symbolic and has no effect unless ratified by two-thirds of the U.S. Senate, a very unlikely eventuality. Furthermore, he said, “The treaty might affect the ability of importers to import from other countries, certain amounts of ammunition and weapons. But the treaty could not affect, could not affect, your right to keep and bear arms in this country.” Napolitano continued, “A treaty cannot trump” the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

Well, why take a judge’s word for it when you can promote unfounded, right-wing propaganda? At least, that seemed to be the operating principal behind much of what came next.

“Until we get that world government,” Kilmeade quickly put in.

Nobody challenged Kilmeade's ridiculous prediction. Instead, Napolitano added fuel to the fire of paranoia. He said, “You know something, Brian? The people behind the treaty want that world government and in their minds, this is a step toward it.”

Elisabeth Hasselbeck added, “You mean controlling ammo, controlling the amount that’s available, eventually controlling the market.”

“Eventually controlling all of us, yes,” Napolitano said. Then he got to the point of nearly every discussion on Fox: using it to smear President Obama. Napolitano continued, “That’s the value set of John Kerry, Barack Obama and their allies in Europe who pushed this treaty.”

Perhaps in an effort to cover his tracks of indiscriminate divisiveness, Napolitano reiterated that the treaty cannot trump the Constitution. But he deliberately ramped up the animosity again by suggesting President Obama’s “world government” philosophy disregards the Constitution. “We know that doesn’t happen (the supremacy of the Constitution) because of Obamacare,” Napolitano declared. Last I heard, Obamacare wasn’t a treaty but a law passed by Congress and it was ruled Constitutional by the Supreme Court. But what would they know? “They found some crazy, cockamamie, never-used-before-or-since nonsense” rationale, Napolitano overruled.

Then Napolitano again pointed out how unlikely the treaty is to be ratified by the Senate. “In my view and the view of those of us who watch this stuff for a living, it will never even get out of a Committee,” he said. “So not only would the Senate not ratify it, there won’t even be a vote.”

Then what was the purpose of this discussion about a symbolic event that nobody thinks will have teeth? The same as just about every other discussion on Fox: an opportunity to advance its partisan agenda via fear and hate and the heck with the facts. 

Even the Fox News producers got into the act. A banner on the lower third of the screen read: “SIDESTEPPING THE 2^ND AMENDMENT” and “TREATY ADDS GOV’T POWER TO REGULATE GUNS.”

Just pay no attention to the many times Napolitano contradicted those claims. I’ll bet plenty of Fox News viewers didn't either.

Video below via Media Matters.