A United Nations report detailed horrific actions of Venezuelan government death squads killing unarmed civilians. According to an article in the New York Times government forces manipulated crime scenes to make it appear the victims were killed while resisting arrest.
Special Action Forces described by witnesses as “death squads” killed 5,287 people in 2018 and another 1,569 by mid-May of this year, in what are officially termed by the Venezuelan government “Operations for the Liberation of the People,” United Nations investigators reported.
The report cites accounts by independent groups who say more than 9,000 killing of unarmed civilians have occurred for “resistance to authority.” over the same period.
“There are reasonable grounds to believe that many of these killings constitute extrajudicial executions committed by the security forces,” the investigators said.
The New York Times report also describes routine abuse by security forces of people detained for political reasons. Men and women were subjected to one or more forms of torture, including electric shock, suffocation with plastic bags, water boarding, beating and sexual violence. Women were dragged by their hair and threatened with rape.
Venezuela banned private ownership of guns
In 2012, under the direction of then President Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan National Assembly enacted the “Control of Arms, Munitions and Disarmament Law.” The explicit purpose of the law was to “disarm all citizens.”
The government claimed banning guns would reduce the number of shootings and gun violence. Gun control fails to reduce crime and more regulation results in increasing violence.
A report by Fox News says many citizens have regretted surrendering their weapons.
“Venezuela shows the deadly peril when citizens are deprived of the means of resisting the depredations of a criminal government,” said David Kopel, a policy analyst, and research director at the Independence Institute and adjunct professor of Advanced Constitutional Law at Denver University. “The Venezuelan rulers – like their Cuban masters – apparently viewed citizen possession of arms as a potential danger to a permanent communist monopoly of power.”
Disarming a nation leads to killing of unarmed civilians
Every nation taken over by tyrants was first disarmed and its civilians butchered by their own government. The events in Venezuela should be a modern day lesson to every nation about the dangers of disarming its citizens.
The people of Germany were disarmed in the 1930’s and over six-million Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis. The story of disarming of nations is repeated throughout history.
We have a responsibility to protect our freedom and the right to keep and bear arms is a big part of it. Freedom is difficult to obtain but it is easily lost. The tragedy in Venezuela clearly shows why we need the Second Amendment.