Opinion: Is Brazil’s growing private weapons arsenal a problem during the election?

(Opinion) “Firearms are a guarantee for the survival of the family,” Jair Bolsonaro said at a public event in June to later add that “armed people will never be enslaved.”

A month later, he addressed women to tell them that “traveling alone out there, I believe that a gun would help them defend themselves if some joker shows up.”

Brazil’s president has never hidden his positive attitude toward firearms and is doing something the new left can’t stand: empowering individuals to defend themselves.

While conservative Bolsonaro promotes the independence of Brazilians, the left wants the state to take on the parental role in dealing with the population and therefore tends to be paternalistic.

That is why on Monday 5, one of the Justices of the leftist activist Brazilian Supreme Court temporarily suspended several presidential decrees.

These decrees granted facilities for the purchase of weapons.

The Justice justified his action with a heightened “risk of political violence” during the election campaign that effectively split the country in two, between Bolsonaro’s supporters and those of former President socialist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

“The start of the electoral campaign exacerbates the risk of political violence,” which “makes the need to restrict access to weapons and ammunition extremely and exceptionally urgent,” said Justice Edson Fachin.

Fachin’s decision came in the face of requests from different political parties to limit the scope of different Bolsonaro’s decrees, which make access to weapons in Brazil more flexible.

The measure imposes restrictions on both the number of guns and the number of ammunition that can be purchased by hunters, collectors, and members of shooting clubs.

THE BOLSONARO FACTOR

Bolsonaro relaxed permits and rules for carrying firearms so that Brazilians could defend themselves should they be attacked.

According to the Public Security Yearbook, Brazil’s number of armed civilians has increased by 473%, from 350,000 in 2018 to just over one million in 2022.

The current head of state took office in January 2019.

Some say the facilities provided by Bolsonaro have allowed domestic arsenals to flourish, mainly in the hands of hunters, collectors, and members of shooting clubs.

The left is exploiting this issue because the socialists prefer a completely defenseless population to a defensible one.

An armed population cannot be forced to do anything.

And, as it seems, that does not suit the socialists, who now call themselves progressives.

They argue that more guns lead to more violence, saying the opposite of gun advocates’ beliefs.

The law regulating the possession and carrying of weapons for civilians allows members of a gun club to buy up to 60 devices, including revolvers and rifles.

At the same time, there are no limits for those who declare themselves “collectors”.

Data from the Public Safety Yearbook say that 76% of “intentional violent deaths” in Brazil are due to firearms, while 17% occur with bladed weapons and the rest with “other instruments.”

While Bolsonaro claims that murders in the country fell from around 49,000 in 2020 to approximately 41,000 in 2021 thanks to his policies, some say that this is a trend that began before the start of his term and responded to the strategies of regional governments, which are responsible for the state police.

IN THE ARDUOUS CAMPAIGN

How worrying is the risk of political violence at the moment?

After the incident in Argentina with Vice President Cristina Kirchner, perfectly timed in relation to the Brazilian elections, the left in Brazil took advantage of the outrage.

It claimed that something similar could happen in Brazil, too.

“In 2018, there was the attempt to kill Jair Bolsonaro. Now, the concern is greater with the safety of Lula da Silva and his supporters,” some point out.

“There will also be a very high risk on election day, especially when they start disclosing the results,” they warn.

In the face of these ‘oracular’ predictions, many people say it is evident that the Lula da Silva campaign is planning one or more false flag operations.

The Brazilian election campaign is proceeding calmly and moderately by Latin American standards, and claims by the left that Bolsonaro is planning a coup have so far turned out to be pure propaganda.

However, this concern led the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) to decide last week that, on election day, it would be forbidden for civilians to circulate armed in a perimeter of one hundred meters around the voting centers.

Better safe than sorry.

The left wants to convince the world that (political) violence is a real problem in Brazil.

But when you see which countries in Latin America repeatedly declare a state of emergency and must deploy the military because crime, violence, and pure chaos reign on their territory, it is undoubtedly not Brazil.

This article was drafted with automated assistance and reviewed before publication. How we use AI · Report an error