Venezuela Bans the Commercial Sale of Firearms and Ammunition

Bob the Super Hamste writes "The BBC is reporting on a new law in Venezuela that effectively bans the commercial sale of firearms and ammunition to private citizens. Previously anyone with a permit could purchase a firearm from any commercial vendor but now only the police, military, and security firms will be able to purchase firearms or ammunition from only state-owned manufactures or importers. Hugo Chavez's government states that the goal is to eventually disarm the citizenry. The law, which went into effect today, was passed on February 29th, and up to this point the government has been running an amnesty program allowing citizens to turn in their illegal firearms. Since the law was first passed, 805,000 rounds of ammunition have been recovered from gun dealers. The measure is intended to curb violent crime in Venezuela, where 78% of homicides are linked to firearms."

Comments

let's put the tinfoil hats down for a second

[luis_a_espinal]

"The measure is intended to curb violent crime in Venezuela, where 78% of homicides are linked to firearms."

That's what Venezuela claims. In reality, the government prefers a citizenry armed with sticks and rocks when the inevitable revolt comes to pass.

I might have a slightly different perspective (given that I come from Nicaragua, a country that used to be plagued by civil wars and tyrannical regimes.) There is a lot of truth that violent crime is up to levels never seen before in Venezuela's history (same in other countries, like Honduras and Mexico.)

Violent crimes are simply too much for the government (tyrannical or not) to handle. A general dissarmament (coupled with other social changes) can curb violent crime in poor countries with poorly developed (or unmaintained) social institutions. And by social changes I mean more pluralistic participation, increased professionalization of the police and armed forces, an opening of markets, however poor the country might be, and an atmosphere devoid of continuous civil strife.

I do not believe the Venezuelan government is simply trying to disarm the civilian population just to remain in power. I'm not a Chavez-sympathizer, au contrair, I loathe everything he stands for. However, this is just too simplistic an explanation, one well suited for playing arm-chair conspiracy theories. It also neglects to acknowledge that a substantial % of the population supports him (populism sells for the simple, destitute masses.)

They Venezuelan authorities have a substantial criminal violence problem in their hands, and this is one necessary (but not sufficient) step to curb it. It will fall short given that all the other necessary ingredients to make it work.

And that is the sad mark of incompetent regimes: to take uneducated, incomplete shortcuts to solve extremelly complex socio-economic problems.

Re:So....

[meburke]

Funny how people cherry-pick their stats, isn't it? I live in Texas. And by the FBI stats, Texas is not even close to the most violent state in the Union. The "Peace index" is meaningless, and the other chart is raw numbers, so of course we have a higher number than less-populous areas. And the statistical abstract for the United States does break down the stats by prior years' per capita rates, and shows that there was an immediate drop in certain areas of violence when the concealed carry laws were enacted in Florida and Texas.

Full studies show a high correlation of violence related to drugs and alcohol. Prohibition isn't working and harsh consequences make the relative cost of doing violence lower than just getting caught.

I would also like to see a cross cultural study: It is amazing to me that gun violence in Canada is so much less than the USA.

The two countries with the highest non-war-related per-capita death-by-violence over the last 20 years are Brazil and Mexico, which are also two of the countries with the harshest gun laws.

In the UK, violence went up after the ban on guns and personal weapons (I have friends who had their collectible swords confiscated), but it was more people being bludgeoned and stabbed instead of shot.

Lots of factors need to be considered before a meaningful correlation can be drawn implying cause-and-effect for violence. Cherry-picking statistics are false logic.

However, for those of you who are entertained by false logic, here's something I received in my e-mail a few days ago:
Scary Doctor Facts
This is really something to think about:
A. The number of physicians in the US is 700,000
B. Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year is 120,000
C. Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171 (US Dept of Health & Human
Services).
Then think about this:
A. The number of gun owners in the US is 80,000,000. (That's right, 80 MILLION! And statistics show that there are two guns in the USA for every man, woman and child.)
B. The number of accidental gun deaths per year (all age groups) is 1,500.
C. The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .0000188.
Statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than
gun owners.
FACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOCTOR.
Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors
before this gets out of hand.
As a public health measure I have withheld the statistics on lawyers for
fear that the shock could cause people to seek medical attention.