In a country long shaped by the weight of armed conflict, Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella has signed a decree restoring the right of some 700,000 licensed gun owners to carry their registered firearms in public — ending a restriction that began as a temporary holiday measure in 2015 and quietly became a decade of policy. The move fulfills a campaign promise rooted in the belief that law-abiding citizens should not be left defenseless while criminal organizations remain heavily armed. It reopens one of governance's oldest questions: whether safety is better served by concentrating
Colombia lifts decade-long gun carry ban, affecting nearly 700,000 permit holders
Criminals are armed to the teeth while decent people can't defend themselves
Mark
So the president is saying this is about balance—letting good people defend themselves while keeping controls in place. But what does "keeping controls in place" actually mean here?
Mimi
The decree doesn't change who can own a gun in the first place. You still need a permit to own one legally. What it changes is the permission to carry it outside your home. Before, you needed a second authorization. Now you don't.
Luke
Right, but that's a significant difference. The original permit system presumably vetted people. The carrying restriction was an extra gate. Removing that gate means 700,000 people can now move guns around without that second check.
Mimi
True. Though the president's argument is that the carrying restriction was meant to be temporary—just for the holidays in 2015—and it just never got lifted. So he's framing this as removing an anomaly, not creating a new policy.
Mark
And the opposition senator says legally held guns will end up with criminals. Is there evidence for that?
Luke
The source doesn't provide data on that. Ávila makes the claim, but there's no research cited, no historical comparison. It's a prediction, not a documented pattern.
Mimi
The president counters by saying they're seizing illegal guns—15,000 this year. But that's a separate issue. Those are already illegal weapons. The question is whether legal guns, once in circulation, migrate to criminal use.
Mark
So we don't actually know yet if this will make things safer or more dangerous.
Luke
Exactly. The president believes it will improve security by empowering citizens. The opposition believes it will worsen it by expanding gun availability. Both are reasonable positions, but neither has evidence from this specific policy yet.
Mimi
It's a genuine policy disagreement about how to balance individual rights and public safety. And Colombia will find out which view was correct.
El Pulso
- A decree signed this week immediately grants Colombia's 700,000 licensed gun owners the right to carry their weapons in public, reversing a restriction that had quietly outlasted three presidential administrations.
- The president argues that an armed criminal class facing unarmed civilians represents an untenable moral and security asymmetry — and that the original suspension was never meant to be permanent.
- Opposition senators are sounding urgent alarms, warning that legally held firearms will inevitably flow into criminal networks, worsening a security landscape already strained by active Farc splinter groups and the Gulf Clan.
- The administration points to over 15,000 illegal weapons seized this year as evidence it is simultaneously targeting criminal arsenals — framing the decree not as loosening control, but as rebalancing it.
- Colombia now watches to see whether expanded legal carry deters crime or simply widens the river of firearms running through a society still navigating the long aftermath of internal conflict.
In a country long shaped by the weight of armed conflict, Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella has signed a decree restoring the right of some 700,000 licensed gun owners to carry their registered firearms in public — ending a restriction that began as a temporary holiday measure in 2015 and quietly became a decade of policy. The move fulfills a campaign promise rooted in the belief that law-abiding citizens should not be left defenseless while criminal organizations remain heavily armed. It reopens one of governance's oldest questions: whether safety is better served by concentrating force in the hands of the state, or by distributing the means of self-defense among the citizenry.
President Abelardo de la Espriella signed a decree this week dismantling a decade-old restriction on public firearms carry, immediately affecting nearly 700,000 Colombians who hold legal gun permits. The original suspension dated to December 2015, when President Juan Manuel Santos imposed it as a temporary holiday security measure — yet it was renewed year after year by Santos, Iván Duque, and Gustavo Petro alike, hardening into something resembling permanent policy.
Under the previous rules, even citizens with valid ownership permits could not take their weapons outside the home without seeking additional authorization. De la Espriella's decree removes that requirement, allowing permit holders to carry registered firearms in public so long as their permits remain valid. Signing the order, he framed it as correcting a moral imbalance: criminals, he argued, were armed without restraint while law-abiding citizens had no recourse. He was careful to note that the decree leaves existing ownership controls intact and was never meant to eliminate oversight — only to lift a restriction that had overstayed its original purpose.
The president also pointed to his administration's seizure of more than 15,000 illegal firearms this year, most linked to breakaway Farc factions and the Gulf Clan, as evidence that the government was actively pursuing criminal arsenals rather than simply expanding the gun supply.
Opposition voices responded swiftly. Senator Ariel Ávila of the Green Alliance Party called the move a grave error, arguing that legally held weapons would inevitably find their way into criminal hands and that only state forces should serve as guarantors of public safety. The debate crystallizes a tension Colombia has long lived with: whether arming citizens deters violence or merely deepens the pool of weapons available to those who would misuse them. The decree is already in effect — its consequences are still being written.
President Abelardo de la Espriella signed a decree this week that dismantles a decade-old restriction on carrying firearms in public, a move that will immediately affect nearly 700,000 Colombians who already hold legal gun permits. The suspension, first imposed in December 2015 by then-President Juan Manuel Santos as a temporary security measure during the holiday season, had been renewed year after year by three successive administrations—Santos himself, conservative Iván Duque, and left-wing Gustavo Petro—until it became, in effect, permanent policy.
Under the old rules, even citizens with valid permits to own guns could not remove them from their homes without applying for and receiving additional authorization from authorities. De la Espriella's decree removes that requirement, allowing permit holders to carry their registered weapons in public provided their permits remain current. The president framed the action as fulfilling a campaign pledge to take a forceful stance on crime, arguing that the asymmetry between armed criminals and defenseless law-abiding citizens had become untenable. "It is not right that criminals are armed to the teeth while decent people can't defend themselves," he said while signing the order. He added that he was simply removing a restriction that was never intended to be permanent, and he emphasized that the decree would not eliminate existing controls over gun ownership itself.
De la Espriella also sought to address security concerns directly, noting that his administration has seized more than 15,000 illegal firearms so far this year, most of them belonging to members of breakaway Farc factions and the Gulf Clan criminal organization. He insisted the measure would not harm the country's security posture and that law enforcement would continue targeting those carrying unregistered weapons.
Opposition voices moved quickly to challenge the decision. Ariel Ávila, a senator from the Green Alliance Party, called it a "grave error" and argued that legally held guns would inevitably migrate into criminal hands. He framed the issue as an ethical problem: only state forces, he contended, should carry weapons and serve as guarantors of public safety. The disagreement reflects a fundamental tension in Colombian security policy—whether arming citizens deters crime or simply increases the supply of weapons available to criminal networks.
The decree takes effect immediately for the roughly 700,000 permit holders already in the system. What remains to be seen is whether the policy achieves its stated goal of deterring crime or whether, as critics warn, it simply expands the pool of firearms in circulation at a moment when illegal weapons seizures suggest criminal organizations remain well-armed and active.
Citas Notables
It is not right that criminals are armed to the teeth while decent people can't defend themselves— President Abelardo de la Espriella
Described the move as a grave error, arguing that legally held guns would end up in the hands of criminals— Green Alliance Party Senator Ariel Ávila
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