Malko, I am not doubting your knowledge or perception of the firearm problem within the Dominican Republic, but I would like to know from which reports your numbers are based on? Regarding the numbers you provide, let's take a closer look at them.
"200,000+ legally owned/licensed firearms". The majority of gun owners own more than one gun, so 200,000 legally owned/licensed firearms doesn't necessarily mean 200,000 different people have these weapons.
"300,000+ illegal/expired licenses". Again, these numbers don't necessarily equate to the numbers of people in possession of weapons, and there is no way to calculate how many illegal firearms are in existence....regardless of what authorities tell you. I'd put a little bit more confidence in these numbers if you said that they were inclusive of police and military personnel. Are there a lot of weapons out there? Of course. Are some in the hands of people they shouldn't be? Again, of course. But I also have to agree with drstock, that most Dominicans I know (in the Dominican Republic) don't own guns.
The #'s were from a diario libre article from june 2016, sadly i was unable to link it.
My experience ( personnal) is that if a dominican has
anything worth stealing, ie a car, a nice(ish) house..... he has a gun.
Just yesterday a friend of mine who is an electrician came by to say hello. He is not rich, not even middle class...... but has a gun.
Recently ( well ok, no, like a year ago ), a young guy who looks after cows (!!) was killed for his motorbike...... and his gun.
All small buisness owners will have gun, more often than not, an illegal one ( high costs of legal one ), and as such they wont be advertising the fact, nor waving it around.
Again as AE pointed out, I live in deep campo, so things are not the same as big towns ( where I would have thought there were more guns ) or in touristy places ( where increased police/military would have me think there are less guns ).
Its not unusal to see handguns out in the open in colmados, bars/cabarets.... Either carried in the trousers, or put on the table for more convinience when sitting down. And no1 seems panicked or outraged ( as opposed to where i come from ).
I do concur, though, that some1 with a valid gun license will own more than 1 gun. Well 3 at most ( 2 handguns and 1 shotgun is the limit i think ), more likely 2 ( a handgun and a shot gun ).
