Brazil elections 2022: Lula da Silva proposes to disarm the population

On Tuesday, August 30, Brazil’s former president, convicted for corruption, and current candidate in the upcoming elections in Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, proposed to “resume” the disarmament of the population if he wins in the October elections, contrary to the arms policy promoted by President Jair Bolsonaro.

The leader of the Workers’ Party (PT) discussed with a group of governors some of the main lines of his public security policy and stressed that, if he returns to the presidency, he will “resume” the Statute of Disarmament.

The statute, approved in 2003, during the first year of his mandate (2003-2010), was endorsed in a popular referendum in 2005, which rejected the prohibition of the sale of arms in the country but restricted their carrying while encouraging the disarmament of the civilian population.

However, the statute has been relaxed in recent years by Bolsonaro, who came to power in 2018 with the liberation of arms as one of his central campaign promises. Under the slogan that the “armed population will not be enslaved,” the president has encouraged access to guns by civilians and has promised that, if re-elected, he will make it even easier to carry them, thus following the U.S. model.

With the increased easing, which has not been greater due to some curbs imposed in Congress, the number of citizens who registered to have access to guns soared by 474% between 2018 and 2022, according to data published by the NGO Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública (Brazilian Public Security Forum).

Bolsonaro has associated the 6.5% reduction in murders in Brazil in 2021 – its lowest level in ten years – with the increase in gun carrying.

During his meeting with governors, Lula also proposed the recreation of the Ministry of Public Security, the creation of a University specialized in this area, the unification of the Public Security system, and the promotion of cooperation between neighboring countries to combat drug trafficking and arms smuggling.

Lula also gave the nod to the public security forces, one of Bolsonaro’s main electoral bases in 2018, and proposed strengthening the Federal Police during an interview hours earlier to a local radio station in Manaus, capital of the state of Amazonas.

“The Federal Police was dismantled. It needs more people and more intelligence to fulfill its special function. We must take care of our borders,” the progressive leader stressed.

However, the problem with disarmament that is never mentioned by the left-wing is that only the honest population will be disarmed. Criminals will continue carrying and using their illegal guns.

With information from CNN