Security & Strategic Review - December 2003
BRAZIL: Will new gun statute disarm criminals?
Brazil's congress has given final approval to a law that greatly tightens the requirements for gun ownership, raises the penalties for infractors, and provides for a referendum on a complete ban of gun ownership in two years' time. It took about six years to secure passage of this law against intense lobbying by Brazil's powerful gun industry, but even as its promoters are celebrating, others are wondering aloud whether the new rules, ambitiously baptised as the `disarmament statute', will have any effect on the country's huge black market in guns.
The new law
Passage of the law rode on a tide of rising public revulsion at growing criminal violence, which has been claiming 40,000 to 45,000 lives a year and has given ever-bolder criminal gangs control over large portions of the main cities [SSR-03-04]. A study produced by the national statistical institute, Ibge, showed that Brazil's murder rate increased by 37% between 1992 and 1999. The highest murder rate is in the state of Sergipe: 32.5 per 100,000. Next are: Rondônia (34.6), Rio (42.3), Espírito Santo (35.1) and São Paulo (31).
The main provisions of the `disarmament statute':
The new law
Passage of the law rode on a tide of rising public revulsion at growing criminal violence, which has been claiming 40,000 to 45,000 lives a year and has given ever-bolder criminal gangs control over large portions of the main cities [SSR-03-04]. A study produced by the national statistical institute, Ibge, showed that Brazil's murder rate increased by 37% between 1992 and 1999. The highest murder rate is in the state of Sergipe: 32.5 per 100,000. Next are: Rondônia (34.6), Rio (42.3), Espírito Santo (35.1) and São Paulo (31).
The main provisions of the `disarmament statute':
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