Uruguay may be an OK place for you. It is not quite Mississippi where the Gunslinger Law rules the land (courtesy of my friend Ken Stribling–late of the MS Legislature), but better than many States, not to mention some of our Anglo-Saxon cousins.
Let me preface this by saying that I have never felt safer anywhere than I do here.
Q: Do you know what looks good on a burgler?
A: A German Shepherd! (And I have one.) Doberman pincer is also a correct answer.
Despite dogs, more than a few of you have asked me privately about gun ownership and other self defense options. Don’t be ashamed of wanting to know.
If the American Patriots hadn’t been well armed, we might still be singing “God Save the Queen”–and if the South only had more cannon factories, we would definitely be singing Dixie a lot more.
But there I have digressed again…Sorry!
This is fresh from the Police Department minutes ago.
Pepper spray and stun guns can be purchased by anyone and carried legally on your person and in your car.
Shotguns, rifles up to 6.5mm, all revolvers, and semiautomatic pistols up to 9mm, can be owned and kept in your home. They can also be transported in the truck of your car, so long as you have the ownership papers. Lastly, they can be used for hunting in legal hunting areas.
To purchase a legal gun you must have a cedula. But the process takes some time. You will need “Certificado de Buena Conducta” (police letter) which you will take with you to the gun shop. The gun shop will arrange a short training course for you and an examination to make sure you are not John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald or John W. Hinckley Jr. in disguise.
At some point thereafter you will get your gun. Please do not use it on your spouse.
If you are a diplomat, you can buy weapons without further formalities, you do not even have to be sane–you can also use it on your spouse without further complications. Can you spell “diplomatic immunity”?
Thanks for that, as a target shooter this is good news. I want to question the 6.5mm number for rifles. That is an odd number in the firearms world. There are a few rifles of that caliber (bullet diameter) and many smaller, but the more common number I would expect to see is 7.62mm (.30 caliber) or 8mm. I think I read on the boards or a link that someone was able to purchase a 7.62 rifle at a gun shop. The police may be quite correct, but I wonder if the size limit question could be addressed to a gun shop. Certainly the average US cop is close to clueless about firearms laws and limitations here in the states, but a shop owner who’s livelihood is on the line will know exactly what the rules are. BTW I have a US federal firearms license.
“Mistah speaker…. when I have occasion to travel about the state I always carry with me a handgun, but when I travel to New Orleans I carry me two.”
Left by tucsontom on October 13th, 2006
Retromingent!
Wow, I just learned a new word. I’ll try to use it in business meetings from now on.
I’ll use it as a geiger counter for to uncover phoneys and pseudo intellectuals; if they pretend they know the word, I’ll know for sure :-)
Here’s how it may sound:
“Permit me to offer a retromingent appraisal of the project”.
“Don’t expect anything but retromingent support from management on that”
Left by brazzie on October 13th, 2006
Thank you sir! Most excellent. Next question - what kind of gun can you own - long arm wise? Semi autos off limits? Are there shooting ranges where you can shoot? Can you shoot on your own land if you’re outside of a residential area? Sorry for all the questions, just very curious as well. I’d love to see pictures of a uruguan gun shop… :D
Thanks!
Left by waynek on October 13th, 2006
They also have a wide variety of high quality knives in uruguayan gun shops. Sometimes a knife is much better than a gun, especially if you know how to use it and the distance between you and your enemy is not enough to use a gun. And you do not need any documents at all to buy a knife and carry it wherever you go.
Left by Alexander on October 14th, 2006
You covered buying guns very well - but how about importing guns if one moves to Uruguay? How would one coordinate getting the cedula/moving to Uruguay/bringing one’s gun(s) along with the move?
Thanks.
>>I do not have an answer for that. I will try to find out in a couple of weeks–right now I am in the last week of finishing my Uruguay Book, so everything else is on hold. If I don’t give you an answer in a few weeks, feel free to write me at southron@uruguayliving.com and nudge me.
The Southron
Left by Claire on October 16th, 2006
In doing our research we found that BA and Montevideo have floated to the top of our prospects. We only spent a few days in BA but had to come back to the states as I lost my mom. The short amount of time spent only made us hungry for more and found Montevideo to look as if it could be very much the kind of place we could be very comfortable in. We feel fortunate to have found this blog as part of our research tools. We are kicking a few ideas around looking at how we will end up ‘pulling the trigger’. Will we live a few years aboad or the rest of our lives? Do we split our time between UR and Florida? One of the ways we have considered is keeping our condo here as a ‘live in storage place’. The other is just moving our things to a storage unit if we love UR or wherever we ended up and sell our place. Our first look was BA as our top option. There is a lot of info out there. We did a little more research and saw UR as another place but not as much info. What made anyone choose UR? Were there others looking at AR versus UR? Pros? Cons? Your feedback is appreciated.
Left by Theguttu on October 21st, 2006