Honduras to reevaluate gun control laws: How will it impact violence in the region?
In Honduras, citizens are allowed up to five personal firearms. Its lax laws contribute to high murder rates and make it a source for the region's arms traffickers.
Honduran soldiers wait for buses at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa October 9, 2012. As murder rates soar in Honduras, the President of the impoverished Central American nation, Porfirio Lobo, has called on the army and police to patrol bus routes in a move designed to fight spiraling crime in the world's most murderous country.
Jorge Cabrera/REUTERS
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The Honduran government is reportedly set to conduct a review of its gun laws in an apparent effort to combat rising violence levels, though equal emphasis will need to be made on addressing endemic corruption and weak institutions to solidify any gains.
Matias Funes, a representative from the independent Commission on Public Security Reform (CRSP), said on Oct. 16 that Honduras’ gun laws are in need of urgent revision if efforts are to be made to combat the country’s endemically high level of violence, reported La Tribuna.
Security Minister Pompeyo Bonilla said the government agreed a review of the law should be undertaken and that President Porfirio Lobo had asked that he begin conducting one.
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Under the existing law, citizens are allowed to own as many as five personal firearms. According to statistics released last month by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Honduras’ homicide rate for 2011 was 92 per 100,000, up from 82 the previous year.
“We need to disarm criminals ... and this must be the subject of a very thorough analysis by the government,” Mr. Funes declared.
The CRSP began working on June 1, a government initiative created to work toward reforming the country’s security and justice institutions. According to Funes, though the CRSP was given a budget of $2.1 million, it has only received 10 percent of this so far, reported EFE.
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Along with having the highest homicide rate in the world, Honduras also has one of the highest rates of deaths caused by firearms. According to the Small Arms Survey, the proportion of firearm homicides stood at a little over 80 percent in 2010.
As Funes noted, the high prevalence of gun crime is not only a result of lax gun laws but also the alarming rate of illegal arms flowing through the country. Of the 850,000 weapons estimated to be in circulation last year in Honduras, close to 70 percent were illegal, according to the country’s human rights commission, CONADEH. In one example of this, El Heraldo newspaper last year found that some 3,000 guns had disappeared from government stockpiles from 2002-2006, prompting fears they had made their way on to the black market.
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