Gun Control Fails in Venezuela, Just Like Everywhere Else

Several years ago in the socialist paradise of Venezuela the government announced they were going to implement stricter gun control to curb crime:

Caracas, Venezuela, July 2, 2006--The Venezuelan Ministry of Justice announced the creation of a new firearms control plan on Wednesday, in an attempt to decrease excessive violence in Venezuela. The plan will be presented to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in two weeks, and could begin to be implemented by the end of July.

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According to official statistics, in the past three years there have been 11,643 (2003), 9,719 (2004), and 9,412 (2005) homicides, which is high, considering that Venezuela has a population of 27 Million people. The murder rate in Venezuela in 2005 was six times higher than in the United States.

So how has that plan been working out? Not so well:

The Venezuela Violence Observatory says at least 19,336 people have been killed this year, an average of 53 a day.

The figures suggest Venezuela's murder rate is the highest in South America and four times that of Mexico.

While I love irony as much as the next person I wish people didn't have to die in order to make a point. Gun control doesn't work and it never will work. Six years after establishing stricter gun control laws to curb the country's crime rate Venezuela leads South America in murder rates, even surpassing the drug cartel stricken state of Mexico.

The group did not give an overall reason for the rising violence, but said the problem was fuelled by impunity, with the great majority of killings going unpunished.

A high level of gun ownership is also a factor.

Emphasis mine. If a high level of gun ownership is a factor shouldn't the murder rate have dropped after stricter gun control laws were implemented in 2006? The first linked story put the murder rates of Venezuela at 11,643 in 2003, 9,719 in 2004, and 9,412 in 2005. In 2011 there were 19,336 murders, an increase of roughly 10,000. If gun ownership rates were a contributing factor than the murder rate should be staying relatively steady or decreasing since stricter gun control laws were implemented. Instead they have more than doubled since 2005.