via range365:
In 2012, then-President Hugo Chavez banned firearm ownership by private citizens in Venezuela, leaving the unarmed populace unable to defend themselves from criminals and corrupt government officials alike. In the years following, the crime rate and government abuses increased at an unprecedented rate.
Fox News recently ran a report detailing the fallout that resulted, in part, from stripping the people of Venezuela of the right to bear arms. In the years following the firearms ban, the violent crime rate went through the roof.
In 2015, Venezuela had the highest rate of homicides anywhere in the world, with almost 28,000 people murdered. In 2001, the year before Chavez came to power, only 6,500 were killed, according to GunPolicy.org, an international firearms prevention and policy research initiative. In 2012, that number jumped to just under 10,000, which still only about a third of the 2015 totals. The government no longer keeps comprehensive records, but Amnesty International this past September stated that Venezuela had a murder rate “worse than some war zones,” with 89 people per 100,000 people killed—three times that of its volatile neighbor Brazil.
“The government security forces, at the beginning of this debacle, knew they had no real opposition to their force. Once things were this bad, it was a clear declaration of war against an unarmed population.”
As Kurt Schlichter is fond of saying, an armed person is a citizen but a disarmed person is a serf.
Eventually, anyway.
RELATED: NY Bill Would Require Gun Owners to Carry $1M Insurance Policies.
Since illegal gun owners and criminals won’t carry insurance, let’s call this bill what it really is: A payoff to Big Insurance and an infringement on the right to keep and bear arms.
h/t SG