Why is there so much gun violence in El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia and Honduras when guns are really hard to get?

[nec209]

Why is there so much gun violence in El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia and Honduras when guns are really hard to get? And most people do not have guns and there is no gun culture like the US.

Where are the street gangs and criminals getting there guns from? Is most of the guns being smuggled in from the US there by arms dealers? Countries like El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia and Honduras are not like the US, where it is very easy to buy gun legally.

Most people don't have guns and it is very hard to get gun legally. Yet some how gangs and criminals are getting guns so where are they getting guns from arms dealers being smuggled in from the US or Russia?

Well some people will like to ban guns in the US but say look at El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia and Honduras? But if guns are banned where are they getting the guns from?

 

[Ten oz]

It would help if you quantified this. How many people are beig shot, by what type of weapons, and what regulations are in place preventing firearm sales and are those regulations the same in all the countries?

 

I am not going to waste my morning researching all the data needed by country to analyze your questions when you've provided none to kick off the discussion. With one simple search I found the following and it shows Columbia has just started taking steps to reduce the number of firearms people carry. Seems that obtaining a permit to carry a firearm was rather easy till just last year which implies obtaining firearms was easy as well which counters the assertion that "guns are really hard to get":

"Colombia has extended a nationwide ban on carrying firearms until the end of 2016, an attempt to reduce violent deaths at a time the nation is attempting to consolidate peace.

On January 19, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced that an executive decree banning carrying firearms in public would continue until the end of this year. The ban was originally in place from December 23, 2015, through January 31.

According to BBC Mundo, it is the first time Colombia has implemented a nationwide ban against carrying of weapons. Previous bans have been limited to specific geographic regions, such as certain districts of Bogotá, and were shorter in duration.

Santos said the initial December to January restriction had produced positive results towards reducing homicides, saving many lives. During this period, Colombian Minister of Defense Luis Carlos Villegas said homicides fell 13 percent when compared to the same period in 2015.

Hoping to usher in an era where disputes are resolved peacefully, Villegas said the 2016 weapons restriction is intended to address two problems.

The first is homicides resulting from arguments and committed using a firearm. Colombia has issued 500,000 carry permits for firearms and another 400,000 possession permits; meaning roughly one in 53 citizens has a weapons permit. Santos' decree reverts all carry permits to possession permits, meaning firearms can no longer be carried in public except in certain cases. "

http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/colombia-implements-ban-against-carrying-guns-2016