In a rare move for Latin America, the newly elected mayor of Colombia's capital city has banned weapons from his streets.
Bogota Mayor Gustavo Petro was imprisoned in the 1980s on a weapons conviction. But as mayor he's trying an experimental ban on gun-wielding in public.
The only people authorised to carry weapons during the 90-day trial that began on Wednesday are active and retired police and soldiers, bodyguards of diplomats, politicians, judges and prosecutors, armoured car guards, gun club members and hunters.
Anyone else caught with a gun will have it seized indefinitely, said Petro, 51, who took office last month.
'Nobody can walk around armed in the city,' he said on Wednesday at a small rally in El Amparo, one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods in the city of eight million people. 'I ask the entire citizenry to leave your weapons under the mattress.'
Such bans are rare in Latin America: Brazilian civilians have not been permitted to carry arms since 2003 and Venezuela instituted a ban in November on carrying guns on buses and in passenger terminals.
