After weeks of robberies at restaurants in upper-class areas and shootings in public places, insecurity has become the main topic of conversation in Bogotá.
The news, social networks and WhatsApp groups have been filled with news of robberies and shootings.
X is full of memes that make fun of the idea of carrying a gun to eat to Chapinero and the other areas accommodated north of the capital, where a wave of mass robberies does not give truce.
The fear is real, tangible, it is felt.
And it has also sparked a controversial debate: Should the carrying of weapons be allowed in Colombia?
Who to go to Chapinero for breakfast?
pic.twitter.com/jsmINtDprx
— Alejandro (@diegoalejocm) February 21, 2024
The discussion began with a video that went viral this Tuesday.
A man enters a restaurant in the popular town of Antonio Nariño, south of Bogotá.
His intention is to rob diners.
The images capture a client who is a retired police officer, who intervenes: he pulls out a gun and opens fire.
The force of the bullets throws the thief out of the restaurant.
The ex-policeman chases him and crosses paths with another criminal who is heading towards him on a motorcycle.
He shoots him too.
The two assailants die.
After the event, the authorities arrest the former police officer.
They plan to take him to trial.
In
“In Bogotá they have been robbing people for weeks while they are eating quietly in restaurants and they have not said anything.
But now that a former police officer kills two thieves in legitimate defense, those from the human rights story do appear.
Pathetic,” declares one.
“It is unprecedented that they open criminal proceedings against a former police officer who killed two thieves in Bogotá.
We must support this ex-police officer,” says another.
🇨🇴|
In Bogotá they have been robbing people for weeks while they are eating quietly in restaurants, both in the south and in the north and they have not said anything.
But now that a former police officer kills two thieves in legitimate defense, those from the human rights story appear.
Pathetic.
— Diego Fandinho (@diegofandinho) February 21, 2024
Hours after the video went viral, comedian Antonio Sanint, who has 126,000 followers on
Safe passage.
All legal.
Would it be okay to have the right of the good guys to defend themselves against the bad guys who do have weapons?”
The next morning, this Wednesday, several of the largest radio stations dedicated segments of their morning programs to the carrying of weapons by ordinary citizens - penalized in Colombia, when it is illegal, with up to 24 years in prison.
Legal carry has been permanently suspended.
And, throughout the day, voices from across the political spectrum gave their responses.
The centrist senator Humberto de la Calle trilled his opinions against it.
“Shooting in another restaurant in Bogotá.
People are arming themselves.
And it may involve excessive self-defense.
To do?
Although it is not easy, the proposal of Civil Groups sponsored by Lafaurie [José Félix, Government negotiator with the ELN and president of the Colombian Federation of Cattle Ranchers (Fedegán), which has supported the flexibility of legal access to weapons] is counterproductive.
The only answer is tough authority but in democracy.
Monopoly of weapons in the hands of the State,” he argued.
Shooting in another restaurant in Bogotá.
People are arming themselves.
And it may involve excessive self-defense.
To do?
Although it may not be easy, the proposal of Civil Groups sponsored by Lafaurie is counterproductive.
The only answer is tough authority but in democracy.…
— Humberto de la Calle (@DeLaCalleHum) February 21, 2024
The Minister of Justice of former right-wing president Iván Duque and conservative politician Wilson Ruiz disagreed with De La Calle.
“For the common citizen, living without escorts and the impossibility of legally carrying weapons has become a tragedy,” he said in an interview with
Semana.
The far-right senator María Fernanda Cabal, married to Laufarie, joined Ruiz's opinions.
"For several years I have been insisting on the need to strengthen the arms monopoly at the head of the State, allowing strict control in the possession and carrying of weapons so that citizens can defend themselves from the criminal threat that is growing in Colombia," declared in X.
Outside the political sphere, Semana
columnist
María Andrea Nieto explained on the same social network that “she does not agree with the free carrying of weapons.”
“In a country like Colombia it seems like a dangerous extreme to me,” she admitted.
The journalist and opinion editor of
El Espectador
, Juan Carlos Rincón, also showed his opposition: “The dream of those who defend the legal carrying of weapons is that we are equal to the United States, a country that does not have any problem with massacres due to of shootings,” he tweeted.
The truth is I don't agree with the free carrying of weapons.
It seems scary to me.
I respect your opinion, but in a country like Colombia it seems extremely dangerous to me.
And what the extreme left wants is for honest people to say that to accuse them of being paramilitary, genocidal and etc.…
— MARIA ANDREA NIETO (@MAndreaNieto) February 21, 2024
In an interview with this newspaper, criminal lawyers Iván Cancino and Francisco Bernate differ in their legal positions on the actions of the former police officer who killed the two thieves, in particular on whether they constitute legitimate defense, something that would exonerate him of having committed a crime and that It differentiates it from a crime committed with will and conscience.
Cancino argues that yes, that the criminal was riding a motorcycle toward him and that his shot was intended to protect his own life.
Bernate says no, that the man was fleeing and the former police officer was no longer in danger.
However, they agree that Colombia should not allow the carrying of weapons.
For Bernate, the proposal to endorse it has no future.
“We are a violent country.
We kill each other on Mother's Day.
We killed each other at the traffic light.
“The weapons have to be in the power of the State,” he says by phone.
Cancino agrees: “I think there would be tragedies.”
While the debate on the future of weapons spread, another terrifying video went viral in Colombia: at 7 a.m. this Wednesday, a hitman killed businessman Roberto Franco at point-blank range in an underground parking lot in Parque de la 93, at north of Bogotá.
The scene turned into another shootout.
This time, two bodyguards shot two hitmen.
Both survived;
one ended up arrested and the other escaped.
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