“The general release of weapons in Brazil is over,” says Justice Minister 

The Ministry of Justice has warned that it does not intend to extend the deadline for the re-registration of firearms in the country.

The 60-day deadline is already running and ends on April 2.

According to Minister Flávio Dino, between 700,000 and 800,000 registered weapons are currently in circulation.

So far, almost 665,000 have been re-registered, 2,664 for restricted use.

Dino celebrated the decision by Justice Gilmar Mendes of the Federal Supreme Court, who considered President Lula’s decree signed at the beginning of the year, restricting access to weapons and ammunition, to be legal.

“At this point, we must respectfully ask that people comply with the law and understand that the law has to be complied with in Brazil. So that people do the re-registration because it is the re-registration that will allow us to scale the buyback program.”

“People will not keep illegal weapons in Brazil from now on. They will not! Because the winning policy at the ballot box and in the face of the Supreme Court is that Brazil’s ‘general release of weapons’ is over. This is the main message that I would like to say: the general release of firearms in Brazil is over”, declared Dino.

Dino expects that people will choose to surrender their weapons. He said a gun that is not re-registered automatically becomes illegal.

“It is important to remember that there is no acquired right to the use of weapons. It is a precarious and temporary authorization that the state can give or not.”

“There is no constitution, no law, that says the person has the right to carry a gun. This doesn’t exist in Brazil,” said the minister.

In January of last year, almost 10,000 people applied for firearm registration.

The number fell to 3,888 requests in January of this year.

The Federal Police is crossing data, which are being sent by the Army, responsible for registering weapons of restricted use.

*With information from reporter Luciana Verdolin for Jovem Pan