Think you have a fundamental human right to defend your life? The UN doesn't.

In a perusal of this document, from the UN's conference last July about "small arms and light weapons," I learned that the UN disagrees with the idea that self-defense is a human right. This passage from page 9 is illustrative:

A. Self-defence as an exemption to criminal responsibility, not a human right
20. Self-defence is a widely recognized, yet legally proscribed, exception to the universal
duty to respect the right to life of others. Self-defence is a basis for exemption from criminal
responsibility that can be raised by any State agent or non-State actor. Self-defence is sometimes
designated as a "right". There is inadequate legal support for such an interpretation.
Self-defence is more properly characterized as a means of protecting the right to life and, as
such, a basis for avoiding responsibility for violating the rights of another.
21. No international human right of self-defence is expressly set forth in the primary sources
of international law: treaties, customary law, or general principles. While the right to life is
recognized in virtually every major international human rights treaty, the principle of
self-defence is expressly recognized in only one, the Convention for the Protection of Human
Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights), article 2.15
Self-defence, however, is not recognized as a right in the European Convention on Human
Rights. According to one commentator, "The function of this provision is simply to remove
from the scope of application of article 2 (1) killings necessary to defend against unlawful
violence. It does not provide a right that must be secured by the State."

Three pages later, we see passages like this one:

Even if there were a "human right to self-defence . . . "

In other words, it looks as if not only do they deny that there exists a fundamental human right to self-defense, they seem almost to disparage the idea.

How can a group that claims to champion human rights be so contemptuous of what might be the most vital and fundamental of those rights?

The UN hasn't yet explicitly tried to insist that the U.S. repeal the Second Amendment to the Constitution, but it seems clear that very many member nations would like to.

That's just too damned bad for them.