Venezuela seizes contraband ammo in shipment from U.S. latino.fox.com‘s headline proclaims. “Venezuela’s militarized police—” Wait. Let’s clarify terms. A “militarized police force” is a publicly-funded army with plenty of firepower and no meaningful accountability. In this case, it’s a “law enforcement” organization that answers to Venezuela’s ruthless autocrat Chavez and his cronies. Who, last February, banned civilian firearms ownership. Ammo is also verboten. So, guess where those seized bullets came from . . .
Venezuela’s militarized police on Tuesday seized 18,000 rounds of ammunition hidden in a container unloaded from a vessel that arrived from the United States, the Interior Ministry reported.
The ammunition found in the northwestern port of Maracaibo was hidden in boxes of electrical appliances imported from Miami, ministry press secretary Jorge Galindo said on Twitter.
I’d like to believe that the CIA was behind the ammo smuggling plot. It would be nice to think that at least some of Uncle Sam’s South American covert ops (of which there are many) support people power—as opposed to backing one drug cartel over another, training secret police and that sort of thing.
I’d also like to believe that Moran Atias and I have a bright future together. I wouldn’t bet on it. Meanwhile, the mainstream media’s willingness to put Venezuela’s gun ban into a pro-government context—excusing it as an anti-crime measure—makes me want to hurl.
The Venezuelan government issued a decree in February banning sales of guns and ammo as part of an effort to curb violence in a country with a murder rate of 48 per 100,000 residents.
The government confirmed that as a result of the measure between February and May authorities recovered some 805,000 bullets from private gun shops which had to close their doors or shift their activities.
About 10 million weapons are circulating illegally in Venezuela, a nation of nearly 30 million people that ended 2011 with 19,336 murders, according to the Venezuelan Observatory on Violence.
This is how a free people descend into a police state. Well, more of a police state. And what is the U.S. doing about it (other than sending petro-dollars into the government’s pocket)? Nothing.