During the procedure, 156 parts and pieces of weapons of war were seized, including assault rifles and rifles of different calibers; 6,221 rounds of ammunition of different calibers; a riot helmet; a laptop and two ballistic protection vests.
The Ministry of Interior also informed on August 2 that it dismantled an arms trafficking network that introduced military material into Venezuela from the United States, in an operation in which boats, vehicles and at least one airplane were seized.
According to the authorities, this network was organized by the so-called Comanditos del Terror of the opposition organization Vente Venezuela, with the support of a shipping company from the United States, with the aim of creating chaos among the population.
That’s actually very little ammo. Random dudes hoard that much in a regular basis. Not that some chuckleheads couldn’t do a lot of horrible things with it, but it isn’t enough to fight even a local cop precinct with.
I haven’t met “random dudes” that hoard as much ammo as the article mentions in Latin America. From my perspective, that is not normal unless the person holding this weaponry are part of the capitalists illegal enforcers(cartel member).
I agree it isn’t a typical amount but it is also nowhere near enough to challenge state power even at the local level. If you were to give these neo-liberal losers 100 rounds each - around 3 typical semiauto rifle magazines - that’s just 60 incompetent small business tyrants and MMA enthusiasts running around getting themselves shot. They have plenty capacity to do violence for a short while but could not sustain any real effort using this stockpile. They would need to be resupplied almost immediately.
This may be an insufficient amount of ammo for a coup but should’nt be taken to mean that it is not connected to one. We don’t know what other weaponry was smuggled or was intended to be smuggled that was not captured and their plans may have been to do a harper’s ferry type action or to provide justification for a military coup.
It’s not even enough to challenge a precinct of cops. At a local level, they would be up against cops, Chavista armed groups, and if things got out of hand, the military.
I’m sure it is part of some losers idea of overthrowing the government. But so are some of those “don’t tread on me” losers with 6000 rounds of ammo that haven’t quite put it together that in the event they need to “overthrow tyranny” they will be shooting their “thin blue line”. It’s not a realistic threat to the state, even at a local level.
For context, you could move that much ammo in the back of a single pickup truck.
I think you’re making the assumption that the US needs proxy forces to win a war, rather than just do some terrorism or assassinations. A seizure of weapons this size tells me there are probably more that have not yet been discovered.
Or, you know, civilians. Shoot up a protest and claim the cops did it, for example. Or just a terrorist attack
Americans believe that everybody in the world has a gun and hoard “very little ammo”.
What do random dudes plan to do with 6000 rounds of ammunition?
I can easily go through a few hundred rounds at the range?
But not 6000, right?
I can easily go through a few hundred grams of pasta every week, but I don’t keep 6kg at home.
What are you firing? Unless it’s 9mm or .22 then that’s several hundred dollars. That’s some pretty expensive range time.
People don’t train that much in poor countries unless they’re in a gang or powerful militia
Most of the time they just shoot targets with it and entertain fantasies about how they are gonna survive societal collapse using them, somehow.
Im Poland not even the gang wars in 90’s required so much ammo, but i guess in Murica every second random dude sits on crate of bullets?