Brazil’s proliferation of firearms
A major impact of Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency has been radical change in the nation’s gun laws. The number of Brazilians owning guns has increased six-fold since Bolsonaro’s election in 2018. Gun owners are among the most fervent supporters of the right-wing populist president, who is up for reelection on October 2, 2022.
Upon entering office, he signed multiple decrees loosening restrictions on gun ownership, and shooting ranges have been popping up everywhere. On a recent visit to Brasília, I returned to my car in the parking lot of a supermarket and found a flyer advertising a shooting range offering classes in handling firearms. The flyer touted the need to keep one’s family safe, and many proponents of expanded gun ownership say they need to defend themselves because the police don’t do their jobs properly. The option of reforming the police to better enable them to serve and protect appears not to be on the table.
While Brazil still has more safety requirements than the United States, the spectacular increase in the number of guns legally in circulation gives pause. And for the first time, individuals can own assault rifles if they qualify as collectors or engage in shooting competitions.
Reporting by NPR in July featured Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo Bolsonaro as a high-profile promoter of wider gun ownership. He celebrated his 38th birthday in July and his wife commemorated the occasion with a revolver-decorated cake. Eduardo told Tucker Carlson of Fox News that the murder rate has dropped since more Brazilians began packing heat. He fails to mention that the murder rate was already decreasing when his father took office. Brazil’s murder rate last year was 19 per 100,00, while in the United States the number is 7.
Reuters recently reported on a disturbing trend of guns, including assault weapons, falling into the hands of criminals. Brazil’s federal police had predicted this as they voiced concern about Bolsonaro’s lax policies. Last December thieves stole 4.5 million reais (nearly one million US dollars) from a bank in Gauíba, in the country’s south. Reporters traced the serial number of an assault rifle used in the heist to the original owner, who was paid 2,000 reais (about 400 US dollars) by the criminals to legally purchase the weapon.
Criminal gangs stage robberies using weapons purchased legally, sometimes through burglarizing a legitimate owner’s home, perhaps identifying their target through gun license registries, and sometimes by simply paying people to purchase guns legally and turn them over to the gang, as in the Gauíba bank robbery.
These emboldened crews of bank robbers have taken on the mantle of novo cangaço, hearkening back to the cangaceiros of Brazil’s northeast region of the early 20th century, marauding bands who roamed the countryside taking what they needed to survive at gunpoint. The most famous of these was Lampião, a Robin Hood-like figure in Brazilian history who was regarded as both hero and criminal.
The architect of Brazil’s newly loosened gun laws, President Jair Bolsonaro, is widely predicted to lose the October 2nd election. There are only two viable candidates, Bolsonaro and Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, simply called Lula. Lula is a leftist former president who continues to enjoy support among the electorate, but perhaps not enough to win the first round of the election outright, as there are multiple other candidates. Many people are predicted to vote for their favorite candidate in the first round, rationalizing that they will gag and vote for Lula in the second round. The concern is that a close first round will embolden Bolsonaro, who said a year ago he would win the 2022 election or be arrested or killed, threatening his intention to remain in office regardless of the outcome. He has torn a page out of Donald Trump’s playbook by spreading lies about rigged elections. Bolsonaro even summoned ambassadors from Brasília’s embassies to the presidential palace to regale them about a lack of election security.
On September 23, 2022, Bolsonaro once again waxed nostalgic about 1964, the year of the coup d’etat that established the military-civilian dictatorship that would last 21 years. If Bolsonaro loses the election, especially if it is close enough to give him rhetorical cover, the fear is that he will refuse to leave office. Will the military support him in this scenario? Or could his newly armed supporters rise up in widespread violence?