De la Espriella Lifts Colombia’s General Suspension on Firearm-Carry Permits

President Abelardo de la Espriella signed Decree 1368 of 2026 on Tuesday, September 8, lifting the general suspension that had kept holders of a firearm carrying permit from carrying their weapons outside their homes since 2015. The move fulfills a campaign promise and takes effect Wednesday, September 9, the day after its publication in the Diario Oficial (Official Gazette).

The decree, issued by the Ministerio de Defensa Nacional (Ministry of Defense), ends the additional special authorization that holders of an individual carrying permit had to obtain on top of their existing license during the suspension. It does not create new rights, authorize unrestricted or indiscriminate carrying, or alter the licensing requirements, restrictions and controls set out in Decree Law 2535 of 1993, Colombia’s foundational arms statute, according to the decree’s text. The state’s constitutional monopoly over weapons, war ammunition and explosives under Article 223 of the Constitution remains in force.

“For years, the citizen who obeys the law was restricted, while criminals kept arming themselves illegally to the teeth. That has to change,” de la Espriella wrote on his X account. He added that the change “does not mean indiscriminate carrying” and that strict controls, requirements and permits from the competent authorities remain in place. “What ends is the general suspension that turned the prohibition into the rule,” he wrote. “To the law-abiding citizen who strictly complies with the law, guarantees within the law. To the criminal illegally armed, the full weight of the law and the full legitimate force of the State.”

Firmé el decreto que levanta la suspensión general de los permisos para el porte de armas de fuego en Colombia.

Durante años se restringió al ciudadano que cumple la ley mientras los criminales siguieron armándose ilegalmente hasta los dientes. Eso tiene que cambiar.

Las cifras… pic.twitter.com/dsZAshWMWS

— DE LA ESPRIELLA STYLE (@DELAESPRIELLAE) September 8, 2026

The suspension traces to Decree 2515 of 2015, signed by then-President Juan Manuel Santos on December 24, 2015. “Colombians deserve a calm and safe Christmas and New Year,” Santos wrote on Twitter at the time, according to El País, which reported the measure was meant to guarantee tranquility and security for Colombians over the holiday season. It initially ran through January 31, 2016, but Santos’s government kept extending it, and every administration since has renewed it in turn. The measure was formalized into a standing, annually revisited policy under Decree 2362 of 2018, signed during the government of Iván Duque, which cited a declining trend in homicides and injuries linked to firearms between 2016 and 2018 as grounds for continuing it. Its most recent extension came from Decree 1482 of December 31, 2025, signed by then-President Gustavo Petro, which pushed the suspension’s expiration to December 31, 2026. Decree 1368 repeals both the 2018 and 2025 measures outright.

The general suspension power itself derives from Article 41 of Decree Law 2535 of 1993, as modified by Law 1119 of 2006, which authorizes Colombia’s competent military authorities to suspend the validity of carrying and possession permits nationwide. Colombia’s Constitutional Court upheld that authority in a 2010 ruling, finding it consistent with the state’s constitutional monopoly on arms.

De la Espriella defended the decision with seizure figures covering January 1 through September 3, 2026: Colombia’s security forces confiscated 15,700 firearms in that period, 14,179 of them linked to the commission of crimes, according to El Tiempo. Of the total, 980 weapons were tied to FARC dissident factions, 551 to the Clan del Golfo and 339 to the National Liberation Army (ELN), the president said, adding that the weapons linked to dissident groups alone included 380 rifles and 65 60-millimeter mortars.

“There is no justification for bandits being armed to the teeth while decent people cannot defend themselves.”

— President Abelardo de la Espriella

The decree specifies that the lifted suspension does not extend to weapons whose permits have expired, been individually suspended, canceled or revoked, been seized or placed under a judicial or administrative measure, or that are subject to a separate legal or judicial prohibition, nor to permits that authorize only possession rather than carrying. Colombia’s military authorities retain their power to issue, renew, suspend, cancel or revoke individual permits, the Policía Nacional (National Police) keeps its inspection and seizure authority, and the Ministry of Defense’s Departamento Control Comercio de Armas, Municiones y Explosivos (Department for the Control of Arms, Ammunition and Explosives Trade) will continue to maintain the registries used to verify which permits remain valid.

The distinction that matters going forward, according to attorney Fabio Humar, is between possession and carrying. “Proving you are licensed to have a weapon requires a permit. But possession is different from carrying, which is what was restricted. What this decree does is authorize carrying,” Humar told El Tiempo.

Former President Gustavo Petro, whose own government signed the most recent extension of the suspension in December 2025, criticized the repeal in a two-word post on X: “La necropolítica,” or “necropolitics” — a concept, Infobae noted, that links state policy to violence and exposure to death.

Above photo: © Loren Moss