Guatemala Firearms out
of Control
Guatemalan authorities
recognize Friday serious
deficiency in
registering and
controlling firearms,
despite 85 percent of
crimes committed in this
country are with those
devices.
David Barrientos,
director from the
Department of Control of
Arms and Munitions (DECAM),
told deputies from the
Republic's Congress that
the country has no an
organized file or the
adequate technology to
fulfill the entity's
functions.
According to Barrientos,
the nation has granted
about 300,000 licenses
to individuals for the
possession of guns, and
50,000 of them with
permission to carry
them, but there is no
any information system
to monitor them.
The DECAM director said
there are 250,000
weapons illegally on the
street, although the
International
Investigation Center on
Human Rights estimates
that figure at one and a
half million.
Government Minister
Vinicio Gomez informed
Thursday that about
52,342 homicides have
been committed in
Guatemala in the last 12
years, over 44,000 of
them with firearms. |
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