The socialist leader of Venezuela announced in a speech to regime loyalists his plan to arm hundreds of thousands of supporters after a years-long campaign to confiscate civilian-owned guns. “A gun for every militiaman!” Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro said to uniformed militia members outside the presidential palace

Source: Socialist Venezuelan Leader Steps Up Arming of Supporters After Outlawing, Confiscating Civilian Guns – Washington Free Beacon

There was never a confiscation of civilian guns for one simple reason: Civilians do not own the firearms they bought. By law (and it has been like that since the 1930s) all weapons inside the country’s arsenal under the military.

What they have in Venezuela is basically a lease where you pay full retail (sometimes twice) for a government-leased firearm. If you get pulled over and the cop decides to confiscate your weapon for a perceived violation, you are out of luck because that is not your private property but the Government’s.

So, the Venezuelan government after installing the new Disarmament Law went ahead and ordered people to return the weapons unless they complied with the new permitting rules and before a deadline. Of course, the government never quite got around to work out the implementation of the rules, so when the deadline came and went, even the people who were ready to give it a try, had to return the weapons they bought but never owned.

It was all nice and legal and tied with a pretty red bow.