Daniel I. Pedreira, PhD. agreed to answer questions about guns on the small island nation, which is only 90 miles from the Florida Keys.
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Havana, Cuba. (Photo from Lee William’s licensed Shutterstock account).
Duels were once commonplace in Cuba. Political opponents fought each other with pistols or swords up until the 1940s. University students and others who were politically active carried handguns for self-defense. Back then, there was a different tradition about firearms, one expert says.
“But from when Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, one of the first things he said in Havana was the rhetorical question: Guns for what? Who do we need guns to protect ourselves against? Guns were the first thing the regime took away. They started eliminating gun ownership throughout the country. The only people who could have guns were the government,” said Daniel I. Pedreira, PhD.
