Gang violence in Honduras is a monthly (and sometimes weekly) headline. Guns are almost always a big focus of the story. Guns are fear spreading machines, which means they hold a godlike power in the eyes of the gangs. In recent years, drug cartels and the large Central American gangs have been buying up weapons as fast as they can, preparing for World War III. Many people have said that if you can dry up the gang's funds, then you can stop the flow of guns, which will in turn stop the violence. That is a false causality. The premise is that guns are expensive (and that the only gang violence is gun related). Unfortunately in Honduras, a gun can be built from scratch for all of $5, by a 14 year old. They might not be able to produce anything that could be reloaded quickly, but if you get shot by it you would be just as dead as if it had been an expensive weapon.
Jorge started working in a welding shop when he was just 14. He started off slowly, but in little time he had learned how to cut, shape and weld just about anything. That skill could have become a profession for him. Something to help keep him out of trouble. Unfortunately Jorge had been a member of the 18th Street gang since age 12. By the time he started working in the welding shop, he was already actively participating in gang activities such as heavy drug use, assaults and robberies. The gang was always searching for more and more guns, so Jorge used his down time at the welding shop and an excess of scrap metal to begin to manufacture basic guns.
In Honduras, the basic homemade gun is called a chimbo. It consist of two pieces of piping, one with a smaller diameter than the other, each welded into the shape of an "L". A nail is placed inside the larger tube and a shotgun shell is then placed in the smaller tube. The result is cheap and deadly pump gun, which looks more like something that a child would make to play cops and robbers. The smaller tube is inserted into the bigger tube so that it forms a short "U." By pulling the two pipes together quickly, the nail head hits the shotgun shell, causing it to fire. $5 worth of supplies can get any gang member in Honduras a slow to reload shotgun.
Jorge claims to have made a few "chimbos," but he was more interested in making better guns. For his stepfather, he built a .22 caliber hunting rifle. For his own personal use he had an arsenal of various caliber guns. He claims that the hardest part of making a gun was to try and figure out how to make it faster to reload. His "baby" was a .45 caliber pistol with a slide action to quickly load and unload the gun. He even installed a mahogany grip to the gun which he stained and waxed. Jorge claims that he was not the greatest welded, instead he suggests that guns are something that are just "easy" to make.
Jorge may have been good at making guns, but not very smart when it came to their daily usage. The first time he shot his "baby" he held his index finger to close to the spring loaded slide and almost took his entire nail off. Then one day, when Jorge was returning from an errand near his home, he was surprised by a police patrol hidden in the curve of the road that was stopping everyone in search of contraband. Contraband like his "baby" that he had in his pants' pocket. Unfortunately the police saw him at the same time he saw them and he had no chance to run or dispose of the gun. Illegal possession of an unregistered firearm in Honduras carries an automatic jail sentence of 15 years. The police stopped him, conficated his home made .45 caliber gun and whisked him of down the road.
Jorge pleaded with them to talk to his family. He told the police that he was a good boy and that he did not know about the rules. He said that someone had given him the gun to hold onto. The police did go and talk to the family. His mother and stepfather told the police that he was a good kid and never got in trouble. They said that he worked for a man who must have given him the gun for protection since the area was known for gang activities. The police were unsure if they believed them (for good reason), deciding to take him in to the station anyways.
Jorge knew that if he got to the station he would be thrown in jail for sure. For some reason he thought if he could get the police to beat him up, then they would not take him to the police station. He began to insult the police, calling them ever name he could think of. One officer made them stop the vehicle and hauled him out of the back of the police pickup. They gave him the worst beating he had ever received in his life. They left him bleeding on the side of the road, but he was alive and would not spend the next 15 years in prison. Luckily he did not have any gang tattoos yet, because if he had then he would not have been let go (In Honduras, gang tattoos will also get you 15 years in prison). He limped home where his mother and stepfather were waiting. After a scolding and a beating, they forced him to destroy his entire arsenal of guns.
Jorge promised his parents that he would stop making guns. They claimed not know anything about his gang activity, but Jorge himself was getting tired of running with the 18th Street gang. He was lucky, because his gang leader was soon killed and the small group that remained decided to disband and not tell anyone of the others previous involvement in the gang. They say that the gang is for life, but Jorge was lucky to find a loophole. He spent four years in the gang making weapons for them, but know he is out. Today he cannot even weld anymore, because he has horrible cataracts that he got from not using protective goggles when he was welding.
The gangs have hundreds of youth like Jorge that the use to learn various trades that can help the gang. Cheap weapons are easy for the gangs to get. Today though, the gangs have plenty of machine made guns that they have purchased with money gained from working in the drug trade. With their expensive guns they do not have to worry about reloading after every bullet. As gangs get more money they get more guns, however drying up the gang's funds or stopping their access to high powered weapons will not mean that the gang will no longer be armed. In Honduras if you cannot buy a weapon, you just send a 14 year old to learn how to make them.
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