Article from The Daily Caller by Amber Athey.

Venezuela banned private citizens from owning guns seven years ago, leaving firearms solely in the hands of the army and the police. Now, as the country’s opposition attempts to oust the oppressive Maduro regime from power, it is a decision some have come to regret.

Interim President Juan Guaido called for a military uprising, dubbed Operacion Libertad, against socialist dictator Nicholas Maduro on Tuesday. Venezuelans have been protestingfor months against Maduro’s “re-election,” which the United States has declared to be illegitimate in light of Maduro’s jailing of political dissidents and protesters.

As the unrest in the country approached a breaking point, some citizens told Fox News in December that they wished they had guns available to them to fight back against the Maduro regime. A 2012 gun ban made that option all but impossible.

“It was never easy to obtain a handgun permit in Venezuela but at least before 2012 it was possible,” Daniel Di Martino, a Venezuelan expatriate, told The Daily Caller. “Since Venezuelans are unarmed we now depend on a military uprising for our freedom rather than a popular uprising.”

Read the entire article at The Daily Caller.

Image Credit: By Government of Venezuela (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXJ3qXny5Aw) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons