Costa Ricans Encouraged to Destroy Firearms

The Costa Rican Ministry of Public Security is offering to destroy unwanted firearms, and will come by your home to pick up the weapon or you can arrange to drop it for destruction. The apparent reasoning is to keep guns away from children, and out of the hands of criminals.

The recent revenge shooting of a Heredia school director, Chaverri Nancy Maria Jimenez at the hands of a troubled seventeen year old student has provoked much attention. The nation is shocked because the murder took place at an upscale private school and the teen is the child of a foreign parent who had acquired the weapon legally.

Details of the incident were provided by AM Costa Rica and La Nacion.

The scope of the gun destruction program is hampered by the fact that only legal owners of weapons may authorize their destruction. Similar programs in the United States are usually offered by local police departments but do not require the actual registered owner of the weapon to sign a letter.

The program is a good way to dispose of old or obsolete firearms, and the details are explained in La Nacion. Of course having a weapon in the home requires responsibility on the part of the owner, especially when there are children involved. Alternatively, one can not deny the merits of a good shotgun for home defense, especially in the wake of home invasions directed toward expatriates.

Given that police response time in Costa Rica is notoriously slow a shotgun may be the only thing a home owner has to keep an armed group of intruders at bay. Recent changes to the firearms law have made it difficult for foreigners to keep a weapon in Costa Rica.

Anyone who had previously received legal ownership of a gun through a corporation is encouraged to think twice before turning it into the police. The new law only allows Legal Permanent Residents to own a weapon, and this status is only granted after a resident has been in country with temporary residency for three years.

Filed Under: Local News