The devil is always in the details. Celebration should be muted until there is clarity about what this gun liberalization means. According to the article, it just allows guns to be imported into Panama. That is a long way from having an armed citizenry.
While he complained about forged gun permits, there is no indication that permits will no longer be needed.
“In Panama, only legal residents may own and/or carry guns, as opposed to visitors and tourists. Therefore a foreigner can apply for gun ownership once he or she has satisfied immigration requirements and obtained legal residence. Since Panama has neither an army nor the equivalent of the N.R.A., gun ownership rules differ sensibly from U.S. regulations. To begin with there are no gun fairs... you can only purchase a gun from a handful of authorized dealers, and the choices are very limited - not to mention prices are about double what you would expect to pay. Unless you prefer to place a special order, which is going to delay the process by a number of months, you can purchase a gun under five minutes, the time it takes to process your credit card. This is however where the similarity ends...
More responses on Panama Gun Laws here: