Newly Elected Bogota Mayor Bans Guns

AFP

05/01/2012

Gustavo Petro, Bogota?s newly elected mayor, during his inauguration ceremony. (Photo: AFP / Guillermo Legaria)

The new mayor of Bogota, formerly a gun-toting leftist rebel, underscored his break with the past by announcing a ban on carrying firearms in the violence-ridden Colombian capital.

?As mayor and police chief, in accordance with the constitution, carrying weapons will be prohibited 24 hours a day in Bogota,? Mayor Gustavo Petro proclaimed at a ceremony marking the start of his four-year term.

?Bogota told the world it is a weapons-free zone and so, we will not wear them,? he declared.

?It is one thing to own a weapon and another to carry one on the street, in the nightclubs, on the bus and in the parks,? he told a crowd of some 4,000 people at a ceremony in Bogota?s Bolivar Square.

Petro, a former senator and onetime leftist with the M-19 guerrilla group, was voted into office in October 2011.

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Source: http://www.dialogo-americas.com/en_GB/articles/rmisa/features/regional_news/2012/01/05/feature-ex-2776

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