THE U.N. HAS appointed University of Minnesota Professor Barbara Frey (Orenstein) as its “Special Rapporteur on the prevention of human rights violations committed with small arms and light weapons.” A “Special Rapporteur” is a U.N.-designated expert and researcher on a subject.

Notably, the title the U.N. gave to Frey required her to look exclusively at how small arms are used to violate human rights—and to ignore how small arms are used to protect human rights, such as when used to resist genocide. But the one-sided nature of Frey’s research mission was consistent with her own views; Frey is a member of IANSA and participated in a 2005 strategy meeting in Brazil designed to support the gun prohibition referendum in that nation.

On July 27, 2006 Frey issued her final report, declaring that there is no human right to self-defense and that insufficient gun control is a violation of human rights. (The report, “Prevention of human rights violations committed with small arms and light weapons,” is available on IANSA’s website, www.iansa.org/un/documents/salw_hr_report_2006.pdf.)

On Aug. 21, the U.N. Human Rights Council's Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights endorsed the Frey report in total and recommended that the full Human Rights Council (HRC) do so.

In 1990, CSM's lobby arm came into existence as a result of a small but determined group of people who organized to influence the firearms debate. * * *

[In 1989,] State Representative Howard Orenstein (retired, 1996) and State Senator Dick Cohen introduced legislation to ban the sale of assault style weapons in Minnesota. Grow, along with Maplewood Police Chief Ken Collins organized constituents and again, ultimately prevailed.

Gun control advocates including Grow, Orenstein and Collins reached the conclusion that in order to effectively influence policy, public support would need harnessing. Thus, Citizens for a Safer Minnesota was incorporated. [For a decade, CSM's registered office was located at home address of it's President, Howard Orenstein.] Two years later the Education Fund was established.