My Dad used to do business in Caracas. The Caraqueños were incredibly hospitable. I never worried about his safety. These days, Venezuela has one of the highest per capita murder rates in the world. Like Chicago, the gangsters behind Venezuela’s “gun crime” nestle in the bosom of a dictatorship. OK Hugo Chavez’s peeps are worse. For now. But the wider point remains: where civilians are not allowed to defend the rule of law through force of arms no such rule exists—or only as much as dictators decree. And so, on Friday, Nicolas Maduro’s supporters watched as the Venezuela President signed a gun control law that banned civilian firearm ownership. Unlike the American news orgs, aljezeera.com was all over it . . .
The bill will allow sentences of up to 20 years in prison for any civilian convicted of illegally carrying or selling a firearm.
It also restricts the sale of ammunition to civilians, and bans weapons from being shown in public places.
“Any arm that is confiscated will be destroyed immediately … the sales of weapons and ammunition also ends,” said National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello.
There are some exceptions: people are allowed to use weapons to protect their property and themselves when in danger, and security personnel can use them when transporting valuable items.
The bill was promoted by late president Hugo Chavez, a leftist-populist in power since 1999 who died on March 5.
The ruling socialist party, or PSUV, and two opposition parties approved the bill.
In the first quarter of 2013, there were 3,400 murders. That followed another year of bloodletting that saw about 16,000 homicides nationwide in 2012, according to government data.
No to mention the human rights abuses we mentioned the last time we mentioned the Venezuelan move to [greater] civilian disarmament. The only question now: will the resulting surge in “extra-judicial” government killing replace gangland/drug cartel slaughter or co-exist with it? Watch and learn.
Damn. So I’ve got to click on aljezeera.com to get more background on this… From a liberty-inspired firearms blog. Oh, well, I’m sure I’m already on someone’s list so I might as well add another record to my file with the NSA.
Good info, thanks.
Al Gore said they weren’t such bad people . . . .
Al Gore has SFB syndrome…..a very bad form of early alzheimers with political-correctness/power-grabbing as the principle manifestation.
He doesn’t recognize the nature of the problem until it hits him—like a steel butt-plated Mauser rifle—in his own face.
Al Gore keeps blood in his refrigerator. No, really. And travels with baggies of cold-pack insulated blood. I’m not going to draw any conclusions for you.
I find it actually pretty informative to visit non-US / non-Western based media sites and read what they post.
Al Jazeera is a pro-Arab, anti-Israeli, with a quasi-modern Islamic bend.
Or you have outlets like the Daily Xin Hua, which is funded and managed by officials in the Communist Party of the PRC.
If you understand the inherent bias present in where you get the information, it allows you to better discern what’s really going on.
As long as you know their inherent biases, you can filter accordingly… unlike American news shows, which all claim to be “NEUTRAL” and “unbiased.”
MSNBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, Forbes… pshhht. Good luck trying to dig up all the shadowy multi-million dollar corporations and mega-rich oligarchs who pull the strings behind those networks.
MSNBC, ABC, CBS, CNN = FOX, Forbes???
Is there a businessman/”corporate_____ hiding under your bed or in that crack in the wall?
I try to keep tabs on MSNBC, Fox, Al Jazeera, Pravda, and PressTV (Iran’s English news outlet.) Between them, one can get an ok picture of what’s going on in the world.
When the whole “Arab spring” begun taking place in Egypt, Al-Jazeera had non-stop live coverage, when western media was basically ignoring the event completely in favor of celebrity news and gossip. I watched a lot of the initial Egypt demonstrations and military response on Al-Jazeera streaming video.
They are worth a periodic visit. The English version goes way easier on the “kill the infidels” stuff, and is actually less biased than many American sources.
For anyone going to the source, interesting link about politicised gangs in Venezuela at the bottom of the page…
I agree.
¡Oye, amigo! Dedo fuera del gatillo.
Now I know how to say “trigger guard” in Spanish! 😀
Pase once anos de mi ninez en Venezuela.
They deserve the government they elected.
Just like Chicago’s residents.
By that logic we all deserve Obama, even those of us who voted against him.
Yeah….
….in the Army we call it a self-inflicted wound.
And I have to ask you just what did YOU DO to avoid this catastrophe?
• Get a position in your local Republican party to fight?
• Report malfeasance on the part of your county clerk?
• Get involved with local NGOs and therein point out the fallacy of Obama/Liberal/Progressive political thought?
• Run for public office?
• Get on a city and/or county commission?
• ‘Street Walker’ for Romney/Ryan?
Or did you just sit on your fourth-point-of-contact up to the point of the actual vote?
Romney passed an assault weapons ban in his state. So no, I did not do most of what you suggest. I promoted Gary Johnson among the lefties I knew or could find (who would never vote Romney anyway) and encouraged the righties to vote at all. Many were not going to as Romney is almost as leftist as Obama. Obamacare was based on Romneycare.
I did my best to show how bad a job big O had done in general. Guns were mostly a non-issue to the left before the election, so I focused on foreign policy.
Even if I had done nothing at all but vote, nobody deserves any particular government. People deserve only life and liberty and a government that respects those basic rights.
We didn’t vote against him enough.
Your right. Too damned many so-called Republicans sat on their dumb/numb fourth-point-of-contact during the 2012 election.
Now we have Obama and a lot of people—who probably did NOTHING—whining about this sorry state of affairs.
And you get these jackasses who will only vote for the perfect candidate. They’d rather see an Obama win than a republican with whom they only 95% agree.
TO: C
RE: These ‘Kacjasses’
And you get these jackasses who will only vote for the perfect candidate. They’d rather see an Obama win than a republican with whom they only 95% agree. — C
No ‘me’, ALL OF US.
And who do YOU blame?
Personally. I blame the vaunted American public education system that has been overrun by so-called ‘liberals’, who are really socialists.
I’ve judged high school debate in Colorado for YEARS. Indeed. I’ve judged state level finals. And I’ve heard it in the judges’ lounges from teachers/coaches. I’ve witnessed it in ithe way students present their arguments in Cross-X, Original Oratory, Dramatic Interp, etc., etc., etc.
The vast majority of these young adults are already brainwashed.
[Be Prepared…..]
Every people gets the governance they deserve.
And the painful results.
Yup!
We did it to USselves.
[Be Prepared…..the ‘fun’ is about to begin in earnest.]
For those old enough to remember: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
Actually…..
….Pogo said….
….We has met the enemy and THEY is us.
What? Don’t tell me another socialist paradise has run out of OPM (Other People’s Money), and now they are outlawing guns and will likely start killing people in numbers?
This is my shocked face. Wow. I had no idea that such things happened. My humanities professors never told me such things.
The only thing less shocking is that the socialist bed-wetters and pearl-clutchers in the US press won’t cover this utterly predictable end-game.
They have plenty of money. When that runs out they will print some more!
Sean Penn’s version of paradise. And difi’s and slow joes and barry’s. kapo bloomberg is looking at that photo and drooling.
I have an argument with that we get the government we deserve thing. Does the victim deserve to be robbed, raped, or murdered? If we vote against progressives and stand against gun control and they still win in an election, do we deserve the loss of freedoms and rights?
Uuuuuuuhhhhh…..in a word….
….NO!
Why do I say this?
Because 40 years ago I took an oath to “uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against ALL enemies, foreign AND domestic.”
What are these cretins going to do to me?
Bend my dog-tags and send me HOME? [NOTE: Home being the place I’ve longed for ever since I became an Honest-to-God Christian.
This place is a ‘mess’ and it keeps getting messier every day I track what’s been going on in this fallen world.
The ‘stage’ is being ‘set’. The next few years are going to be ‘interesting’.
[May you live in interesting times. — Ancient Chinese curse]
TO: All
RE: Heh
The guy in the blue should have done a cut-away sweep kick to bring the state-thug down and then the rest of the crowd should have closed in on him like the zombies did on the biker in Dawn of the Dead (original), to take all his weapons and ammo and leave him ‘neutralized’.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[A warlike nobility and an armed commons protective of property….is the only defense against an aspiring prince. — Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire]
P.S. What do you think Christ meant when He told His disciples—shortly before He was arrested and murdered…..
Now is the time for every man to take his MasterCard and buy an AR-15….with lots of ammo. — Christ, updated and paraphrased
It’s a shame what’s happened in Venezuela. I grew up there from 1968 – 1979 (age 5 to 16). Back then, it was actually a very nice place. Nice people. Beautiful country. INCREDIBLE natural resources… They should be the wealthiest and most prosperous nation in ALL of Latin America… BY FAR. Yet, it has been squandered by the incursion of socialism and communism.
I’m a red-blooded, capitalist, American-born, Navy veteran. But, a little part of me mourns what has become of Venezuela. I would not feel safe going there now.
Que pendejada!
Bummer… posted a longer comment, and it disappeared. Too lazy to re-write.
I grew up in Venezuela (many years ago). It’s a shame what’s happened to it.
Venezuela used to be a nice place to visit. Now it’s well on its way to being a Third World sh1th0le.
And the US is not far behind them. That is our future, unless we remove/impeach the regime that currently runs our government.
In SOME South American Countries even SOME policemen are criminals and actively participate in crimes…
Welcome to reality 🙁
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