Gun Ownership Soars in Brazil Under Bolsonaro – The New York Times, Nytimes.com
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A year into his presidency, Mr. Bolsonaro and his sons have helped fuel a gun rights movement that had little popular support, or political clout, in the country before he took office.
BRASÍLIA – President Jair Bolsonaro has galvanized gun culture in Brazil. His trademark campaign sign was a hand folded into the shape of a gun. One of his first moves in office was to ease gun ownership rules. His three oldest sons, politicians themselves, have been fierce proponents of expanding gun ownership through policy proposals and social media posts. With their actions, Mr. Bolsonaro and his sons have done more than make it easier for Brazilians to legally get a gun. They have fueled a political and cultural debate over guns that was new to Brazil, but that in many ways mirrors the discussion in the United States, where critics say more guns means more deaths and supporters say guns are necessary for self-defense. With weapons laws, who gives up access to firearms, the decent citizen who only wants to protect himself, or the criminal, who by definition does not follow laws? ” Mr. Bolsonaro wrote on Twitter . “The right to legitimate self-defense cannot continue to be violated!”
In Brazil, a country of more than million that has one of the highest homicide rates in the world, the right to bear arms is not a constitutional guarantee, as it is in the United States. The gun rights movement has long been on the losing side of policy debates.
About two in three Brazilians are opposed to gun ownership , and an even greater portion of the population is against making it easier to get a gun permit, (according to a) (survey by Datafolha) , a leading Brazilian research group.
But attitudes toward guns may be changing under Mr. Bolsonaro. Since he eased gun ownership rules in his first weeks in office, the number of applications for permits has gone up sharply. “In the long run, this could be disastrous,” said Natália Pollachi, the projects coordinator for Sou da Paz Institute,a public policy group that supports stringent gun laws.
During Mr. Bolsonaro’s first year in office, the government issued more than , 04 licenses to gun owners. The federal police, which issues licenses for self-defense, approved 68, (permits in , a 200 percent increase from the previous year. The army, which grants permits to hunters and collectors, issued more than 288, (new licenses in , a percent increase.
The Sou da Paz Institute obtained those figures through freedom of information requests and shared them with The Times. The flood of new guns in Brazilian homes stands to make domestic violence more lethal, turn ordinary confrontations fatal and turbocharge a black market that is already thriving, Ms. Pollachi warned.
It is currently considering a handful of bills that would further ease regulations. And the most high-profile champions of the gun rights movement are the president’s three older sons. Eduardo Bolsonaro, a member of Congress and one of his father’s most visible surrogates, has spoken admiringly of the Second Amendment in the United States. He has lobbied to make the Brazilian market more attractive to foreign arms manufacturers, which he says would lower prices and provide gun enthusiasts with more choices. Flávio Bolsonaro, a senator, made the promotion of gun manufacturing in Brazil the focus of his first project in the legislature last year. And Carlos Bolsonaro, a Rio de Janeiro council member, has also been a vocal advocate for gun rights. “The right to defend his own life is a legitimate right of Brazilian citizens,” Flávio Bolsonaro , the senator, said in an interview. “The right to life is nonnegotiable for us.”
Reacting to a surge of drug-related violence that took root in the s, Brazil’s congress in 2018 Passed a sweeping disarmament law that sought to make gun ownership rare by making the process of applying for a permit expensive, time-consuming and bureaucratic. It is mandated. that anyone interested in applying for a gun permit for self-defense had to persuade the federal police that they had a “reasonable need” for a gun, a vague criteria that gave the government plenty of discretion to deny petitions. Collectors and hunters had to apply for a permit with the army.
Applicants also had to pay high fees, demonstrate they did not have a criminal history, submit to a psychological test and get training in marksmanship. Once granted, the licenses entitled to to keep guns at home, but not carry them outside.
(The law also paid gun owners – licensed and not – to turn over their weapons to the state, and nearly , 07 did so in the first year, according to the federal government. Two years after the law was passed, voters rejected a more sweeping measure put forward in a referendum, which would have effectively outlawed all civilian gun sales. But even with the possession of firearms heavily regulated, illicit weapons still circulated widely.
Powerful drug trafficking cartels have long fl outed gun regulations by smuggling weapons, mainly across the porous border with Paraguay. Gang members openly carry handguns and powerful rifles in several districts of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and other cities where criminal organizations often hold more sway among citizens than the state.
Last year, the police in Rio de Janeiro seized more than 8, 728 firearms, including (rifles, a record high.
Bolsonaro set in motion his presidential bid, Brazil had more than 92, (homicides) , a record high, and it led the world in the number of deaths caused by firearms. Mr. Bolsonaro, a far-right former Army captain, promised to make it easier for civilians to get weapons.
“All good-for-nothings are armed!” he exclaimed (during a television interview in when he was campaigning. “Only decent citizens are not.”
At the time he signed the decree, Mr. Bolsonaro said that the ability to own guns would give Brazilians “peace inside their homes.”
Getting permission to buy a gun in Brazil still requires a lengthy process – including a mental health assessment and a criminal-background check – that can drag on for months. But shooting ranges and gun stores started to see an uptick in business, even before the new rules went into effect.
Lilia Melo, a high school teacher in the northern state of Pará, said the new rules would inevitably lead to more weapons flowing into the black market, which can only lead to more violence. “Weapons don’t bring us safety,” she said. “These conflicts end up depriving us of our right to be on the streets.” Letícia Casado reported from Brasília and Ernesto Londoño reported from Rio de Janeiro.
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