For the past three weeks National Action Party (PAN) Senator Jorge Luis Preciado has been pushing for a change in the Arms and Explosives Law regarding legalizing the right of private citizens to bear weapons both in person, in vehicles and at home.
When Senator Preciado came up with the idea on Oct. 6, everyone laughed at him. There were even puns involving his last name, Preciado, precious, adding a “des” to make it “despreciado” or despicable, mainly for proposing such a controversial theme of discussion at the Senate.
Immediately politicians from nearly all political parties came up against the idea and dismissed Preciado as a crackpot and an attention seeker who after losing the election for governor last June in the Pacific coast tiny state of Colima, is looking to increase his unpopularity ratings and proposing gun legalization may just be it.
Accustomed to taking insults, Preciado paid no heed to the many detractors who spoke against his idea and on Oct. 25 he reappeared in public, this time backed by the presidents of the little known Mexican Association of Fire Arms Users Luis Antonio Merino and Armed Mexico Association Luciano Segura Jáuregui, as well as by Raymundo Rábago, a representative of the few gun shop owners still operating in Mexico mostly for repairs and sports ammo, as well as security companies who offer legal body guard protection.
Many people at PAN saw Senator Preciado’s move as somewhat out of line but in the press conference to present his new plan to garner 120,000 signatures of registered voters to back up the introduction of a bill legalizing military grade weapons to Congress, “several PAN legislators have given me their backing.”
By opening up the gathering of voter signatures last Friday Oct. 25, Preciado announced that “we are going for 0.13 percent of the electoral registry in order to make it a citizens’ initiative bill which amounts to approximately 120,000 signatures. We are calling upon the population to come up and sign so that we can present it to the Senate and force it to pronounce itself on the right to legitimate defense and protection of life.”
Preciado let those with him speak on the need to open up the right to bear arms, even if at present it does exist and legal gun owners can register their weapons with the Mexican Army with the inconvenience that the procedure is filled with red tape, tedious and takes a long time as the general government policy on the issue is to make of Mexico a peace-loving and unarmed population.
The tables to gather signatures have been open to the public since Friday.
The problem is that crooks, marauders and thieves for the most part have fire arms they are willing to use to rob people on the street be it on foot or their cars. Merino of the Mexican Association of Fire Arms Users Merino says that they are backing Preciado because this is a demand by the people so that all honest citizens may own a gun for their security and legitimate defense.
“We cannot remain defenseless against the criminals and to the fact that when you leave home you don’t know if you are going to return; that’s why we need that the senator’s bill initiative not be underestimated,” he said.
Gun shop owners representative and security business protection Moreno is of the opinion that the 1972 Law of Arms and Explosives is obsolete mostly due to the vast availability for criminals of weapons in the black market where they can get guns of just about any caliber. “In the meantime private citizens can’t obtain high calibers used by the Armed Forces but the criminal may.”
At the Chamber of Deputies, Deputy Alfredo del Mazo Maza of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) immediately responded by presenting a bill toughening the punishment for gun possession by increasing penalties and sentences to all those who use guns without a license to bear arms.
However, Deputy Del Mazo also admits that the current Federal Law for Fire Arms and Explosives is outdated and that it was drafted under very different circumstances than those existing in Mexico nowadays.
The over-abundance of illegal weaponry being obtained for the most part by criminals has created a new course of legislative events that has a partisan branding.
As this new debate on the right of Mexicans to bear arms is just starting, it’s difficult to have a clear vision as to what may happen, but once Senator Preciado gets, or fails to get, the needed registered voter signatures to introduce the bill to the Senate, consider this issue on a standstill.
But still, it’s moving.
