The Minister of Public Security, Michael Soto, Tuesday defended his position on reducing the number of weapons allowed per person to one each. He appeared before the Drug Trafficking and Security Commission of the Legislative Assembly to answer questions about the new bill to reform the Weapons and Explosives Law.

"I do not intend in any way to disarm citizens and reject those statements made by some people," said Soto.

Still lawmakers on the committee ended up approving a limit of three firearms per person.

The minister wanted deputies to reduce legal gun ownership from three to one. In addition, if the new bill is approved by the deputies, the regulation would apply only to new buyers. " All those who have registered two or more firearms will be respected," said Soto

According to the minister, the main objective of this bill is to regulate an issue of national interest, such as the possession of firearms.

"This is due to a fundamentally technical reason, which is that, as more access of arms in Costa Rican society, more is the number of weapons that could end up in the illicit market and, therefore will be used to commit criminal acts," said Soto.

According to the information provided by the minister on the possession of weapons in the country, they are:

- 37 percent of the weapons used to commit criminal acts came from the licit market.

- In the country, there are extreme cases like one person who owns 202 registered weapons and others have owned between 30 and 40 weapons.

- In 1999, there were 109,000 weapons registered in the Directorate General of Armament, while, as of December 2017, a total of 244,455 guns were registered. The number of weapons increased 135,455 in 18 years.