Venezuelan Government Extends Firearm Ban
Venezuelan Government Extends Firearm BanBy RYAN MALLETT-OUTTRIM
Merida, March 1st 2013 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – A suspension of the commercial sale of firearms will remain in place for another twelve months, according to the minister for justice and internal affairs, Nestor Reverol.
Yesterday, the minister stated that the continuation of the policy was decided upon following a nationwide survey that found the majority of Venezuelans support greater arms control.
“This is part of the commitments and policies of our government, to make further progress towards disarmament of the population,” Reverol stated.
“We have signed a joint resolution between the Ministry of Justice and Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Defense, which extends the suspension of the marketing and importation of firearms by one year,” he said.
According to the minister, the Presidential Commission for the Control of Firearms, Ammunition and Disarmament found that 90.9% of Venezuelans support the restriction of firearms. It surveyed 20,745 Venezuelans.
The commission also found that 84.9% of the population approve of a permanent ban on firearms, while 79% agreed with the temporary suspension of firearm sales.
92.6% of participants perceived that the Venezuelan state is a promoter of gun control, in adherence to international norms.
Also yesterday, 245 confiscated weapons were destroyed by authorities; 155 of which had been seized by police in Miranda state. Police obtained the firearms during operations dating back to last year. Over half of the weapons were pistols, though other small arms such as shotguns were also confiscated and destroyed.
According to Vice-president Nicolas Maduro while presenting the annual report yesterday in the national assembly, the government’s disarmament commission seized 322,000 arms in 2012.
A ban on all commercial gun sales has been in effect since last February, when the government banned all imports of firearms excluding those for law enforcement, private security firms, military personnel and sportspeople.
Today national and regional authorities from the government’s crime mission, A Toda Vida, are holding their first national meeting since the mission’s establishment last year. The mission is tasked with improving public safety. Its national meeting will bring together law enforcement bodies and the judiciary to discuss policy related to security. Violent crime is expected to feature on the agenda.
In 2011, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimated that Venezuela's homicide rate was 45.1 per 100,000 in 2010; one of the highest in the world.
Government figures indicate that firearms contributed to 94% of murders that year.
PUBLISHED ON MAR 1ST 2013 AT 2.13PM
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/7981
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(my emphasis)
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The corporate press and rightwingers here at DU as well as in Venezuela talk up the murder rate but never mention Chavez government efforts to address the problem. In fact, they never mention ANY of the Chavez government's efforts to solve problems, successful (most of them) or not, or still in progress. The Venezuelan PEOPLE clearly see the Chavez government as the solver of problems--for instance, reductions in poverty, increases in educational opportunity, extension of health care to all, high economic growth rates, and more. That is WHY Venezuelans have voted for the Chavez government, by big margins, in election after election, including the recent near sweep of the gubernatorial elections by Chavez's socialist party, following Chavez's re-election as president.
All countries have problems. And no government can solve them all, and certainly not all at once. High murder rates and street crime are endemic in Latin America. Honduras and El Salvador have higher rates than Venezuela. Of course, the propagandists don't mention Honduras and El Salvador; they are focused on Venezuela right now because they see Chavez's ill health as an opportunity to stop all this social progress and empowerment of the poor majority. In Honduras and Colombia--U.S. client states; rightwing governments--there have been thousands of murders of labor leaders, teachers, community activists and other advocates of the poor. But the rightwing propagandists really and truly don't care about this and never mention it.
And where are the rightwing solutions to the gun problem or the high murder rate in Venezuela? They don't have any solutions, other than throwing the Chavez government out to get control of the oil revenues again and stop those revenues going to social programs. They don't care any more about violent crime than they do about any other problems that people face.
Please notice the post after post after post, here in the DU LatAm forum, about violence in Venezuela, not mentioning the violence anywhere else, offering no solutions and ignoring those that are being worked on.
= new reply since forum marked as read
One heavily used claim by the gun loving oligarch-worshipping right-wingers here is that if you take people's guns, they will only find another way to kill people.
That one is too stupid, you would think, for even people as limited as they are to believe.
I'll bet you spend NO time wishing your country could only be as lucky as one in which trucculent pieces of #### get out and swagger around political events with their guns strapped to their spindly, or corpulent thighs, wearing signs about watering the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots.
Jesus H. Christ. What you're missing! 
The fact is that the Venezuelan people have just re-elected the Chavez government, including giving the chavistas a near sweep of the gubernatorial elections, in an election system that Jimmy Carter recently called "the best in the world."
WHY do they keep re-electing this government? Because it SOLVES PROBLEMS. They clearly understand that no government can solve all problems, and certainly not all at once. Venezuelans' love of guns is a difficult problem (just as it is here). Venezuelans certainly know all about it, as well as about the violent crime rate, and are STILL CONFIDENT in the Chavez government--despite all the phony posturing of the rightwing and promulgation of their phony posturing by the corporate press (there and here).
They also know all about the local militias. These things are not a secret. And they have clearly and repeatedly endorsed the government that established this policy.
Ironically, that is exactly what our 2nd Amendment was FOR--the creation of (or the right to create) armed local militias where needed to defend local liberties from internal or external threats. Thus, every state in the US has a "national guard" to deal with local emergencies and threats. The Bush Junta hijacked these state militias and perversely used them to attack Iraq--but that was not their purpose.
It also strikes me as ironical that rightwingers would descry the violent crime rate and police corruption in Venezuela, on the one hand, and object to armed local militias, on the other.
What sort of threats might these militias address? In Venezuela, an internal threat might be the corruption of local police, and an external threat might be the "Black Eagles" --rightwing death squads and criminal organizations from Colombia, who are known to have crossed the border into Venezuela. This combined threat would be very serious indeed as to the rights of local people and the rule of law.
Another threat may be a combination of corrupt local police and a rightwing/military coup d'etat attempt, which they have already suffered once, along with numerous attempts to undermine and topple their legitimate, elected government. What happens if the rightwing gets up to their old tricks again, and factions of the local police and military collude with them, as occurred before? I might say that local militias aren't the best solution, since the glory of the 2002 restoration of democracy in Venezuela was the awesome non-violence of the tens of thousands of people who poured into the streets to defend their democracy. But my opinion doesn't count. It's just an opinion. I don't live in Venezuela and I'm not a Venezuelan citizen or voter.
The PEOPLE OF VENEZUELA have repeatedly endorsed these and other Chavez government policies, by big margins. The policies are "out there" for all to see. The Chavez government has not been shy about its policies; and the rightwing and the corporate press have certainly been vociferous, to the point of "Mad Tea Party" ("Alice in Wonderland"
incoherence in criticizing them. The voters know all these things and make their own minds up about them.
Are we going to accept rightwing DUers' interpretation of this policy (that the Chavez government is "arming its supporters" while taking others' guns away)? Or any rightwing or corporate press interpretation of it? No. They've lied once too often, including huge lies of omission. As I said, they are just muddying the waters with this claptrap. They haven't been able to make a dent in the popularity of the Chavez government where it counts--in Venezuela--but they are still working furiously to deprive Venezuelans of their chosen government, in this case using the opportunity of Chavez's illness. The rightwing here, the rightwing in Venezuela and their corporate press trumpets deny and omit all of the Chavez government's very significant achievements, and deny and omit all evidence that Venezuelan democracy is alive and well--and, indeed, has never been better as to representing the interests of the majority in the halls of government.
It is madness--a complete unreality--to deny and omit these achievements and to therefore deny the most important point of all, about Venezuela--that, whatever the Chavez government's shortcomings, mistakes, oversights, inertia on some issues or other criticizable qualities, these are well-known in Venezuela and Venezuelans still vote for this government, overwhelmingly, BECAUSE OF its achievements and problem-solving abilities. They don't believe that they are living in a "dictatorship" and they clearly know what a lie that is. They understand and have greatly contributed to their own democracy. They don't believe that they are miserable victims of a dysfunctional government and society--as Venezuela is often portrayed by Chavez haters. In the Gallup Wellbeing poll, they rated their own country FIFTH IN THE WORLD on their own sense of well-being and future prospects. This is despite all unsolved problems--such as street crime and gun violence. 5th in the world!
Most Venezuelans clearly believe that the Chavez government is a good, problem-solving government and DO NOT BLAME THAT GOVERNMENT for what are long term, endemic problems in Latin America, such as police corruption and street crime, that cannot be solved overnight. The Chavez government IS SOLVING the long term, endemic problem of poverty, according to all inside and outside indicators. That is WHY most people vote for them and have confidence that they will solve other problems, and have NO confidence in the rightwing for solving anything. The rightwing are going to solve gun violence--like they solved widespread endemic poverty, lack of educational opportunity, lack of health care, lack of public participation, lack of honest, transparent elections, lack of public access to their own public broadcast airwaves, lack of credit, lack of banking regulation, lack of fair taxation, lack of sovereignty, lack of control over their own resources? Ha-ha-ha-ha!
The rightwing there is as good at problem-solving as the rightwing here. Not. At. All. Don't even want to solve problems. Want to loot the place.
