A commentator recently chided TTAG for focusing its editorial ire on Great Britain and Mexico’s civilian disarmament. In the interests of global diversity, click here for the final wording of Brazil’s “Statute of Disarmament.” It’s American antis’ wet dream of a gun control regime, with everything from universal background checks (no sales or transfers without government approval) to its logical corollary (universal gun and firearms owner registration). No business can sell a gun without government approval. But wait! There’s more! . . .
No one can buy, own or keep a gun without government approval. To own a gun a Brazilian must submit a criminal clearance certificate, proof of address and employment, proof of technical capacity and psychological ability to handle firearms. Owners can only buy ammunition in a caliber corresponding to the weapon acquired, subject to quantity limits. There are government fees for all of the above. There’s no legal concealed carry for civilians.
Illegal possession of a firearm earns violators a three to six-year jail term plus fine. Brazilians guilty of “acquiring, renting, receiving, transporting, carrying, concealing, storing, disassembling, assembling, re-assembling, adulterating, displaying for sale or, by any other means, utilizing for their own benefit or for the benefit of others, when exercising either a commercial or industrial activity, firearms, accessories and ammunition without authorization, or in violation of the legal or regulatory norms” are looking at a four to eight-year stretch.
No one under the age of 25 can possess a firearm. One year after the legislative package is enacted, all manufacturers’ guns must include micro-stamping. [NB: That would mean Brazilian-based Taurus will have CA-compatible semis.] No more toy guns or replicas. Banned. There are more provisions, but those are the low-lights.
Here’s a quick reminder of the state of play of the South American country whose motto is “Ordem e Progresso” [via wikipedia yes wikipedia]:
In 2006 49,145 people were murdered in Brazil according to the health ministry DATASUS, an increase when compared to 2005, when 47,578 people were killed. Total murders set new records in the three years from 2009 to 2011, surpassing the previous record set in 2003. More importantly, 2003 still holds the record for murders per 100,000 in Brazil; that year alone the rate was 28.9. Note that police records post significantly lower numbers than the health ministry.
Will Brazil’s across-the-board civilian disarmament agenda do anything to reduce the country’s violent crime rate? I’m betting no. Quite the opposite. If the government doesn’t play fast and loose with the stats [as evinced above and here] we should see an increase in lawlessness, whether from the government or criminals or both. Watch this space. And get ready for American antis to greet the disarmament program’s failure with the argument that Brazil didn’t do enough to restrict “gun violence.” Seriously.
Farewell Weimar Republic; hello Third Reich.
Well, it makes sense doesn’t it? Isn’t Brazil where all the Nazi generals went to avoid Nuremberg? Sounds like they are working to restart their own utopian vision.
Yep lots of former nazis settled there.. And they had a totalitarian system of government as well.. Oh wait they still do.
Brazil, maybe a few. Argentina for the majority of them.
NO Brazil was one of the Allied Powers. Argentina was aligned with the Axis (Germany, Japan,etc).
Nazi landed in Argentina. Recent research suggests/states that Hitler and Eva Braun did not die in “The Bunker” but successfully E&E to Argentina were lived until they died in the 1960s.
More like the Mad Max world of Mexico.
Remember: The current Brazilian president is a gal that is a former Marxist guerrilla. How would you like Che Guevara running your country
Che would’ve wanted everyone armed, not a real apt comparison there dude.
No, actually Che systematically disarmed people and then rounded them up for slave labor and executions, following several weeks/months of torture and starvation. The only people he armed were his henchmen and fellow socialist travelers.
Does this mean Taurus will be moving? Or will they just comply?
Or, go out of business?
Comply, Not too sure government would care about exports as long as they get to collect tax.
More likely they just won’t sell to civilians in Brazil.
Knowing how Brazil is, they’ll probably get an exemption. Since Brazilian civilians are caliber restricted to .38 special or less, most of the handguns Taurus sells in the US are restricted to LEO and Military only. I doubt they would want to make production of their own peoples firearms more difficult.
It’s a start is what I hear many antis say. No it is not a start, it is a giant leap into removing rights from people when you enact strict gun control. If they think other rights are safe after a giant loss of rights they are sorely mistaken.
Its not for the children, its not about crime its about establishing control over the people, every state which goes down this path ends up with top down autocratic power (Fascism/Socialism same thing) not democracy where power emanates from and with the consent of the people.
“Democracy” is a poor chpice of words.
If anyone doubts that the murder rate is a function of culture and not availability of guns, they need to visit bestgore [dot] com and see what creative ways our South American neighbors devise in exacting revenge, retribution and the pursuit of criminal endeavor.
Wow. A holocaust survivors sons blog providing (indirectly) links to a holocaust deniers site. Ironic, no?
Holy crap!
Holy s**t
It’s amazing that even outside of the U.S. the failure of the war on drugs is being blamed on gun owners.
Don’t be a twit. This has to do with a flailing would-be autocrat and political cover provided by crime-ridden, corruption-generated shanty towns that are so closed off to outsiders they may as well be separate countries.
If you wondered how a magnificent country like Brazil — the seventh largest economy in the world — could remain on the cusp of being a Third World nation for so long, wonder not.
In June of 2013, the current regime was shaken by a strong protest movement that was, shall we say, concerned about the level of corruption in the government of Brazil. While the protests subsided, the G’s fear of it’s own people has not. Hence, the current lust for universal disarmament.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Sounds like Chicago.
Well with America swirling the bowl of first world nation status, it makes perfect sense.
Brazil is the country of the future, and always will be.
Yea, the future that never comes! Like the signs in the taverns up north – “Free Beer tomorrow”.
It looks like Diane Feinstein has found another “Amendment” to add to the next bill to come across the Senate floor.
This could be a cool new feature. A lot of people (myself included) are ignorant of the gun cultures of other countries, and it would be neat to see how gun rights (or a lack thereof) are exercised elsewhere.
I’m the aforementioned commenter and that’s exactly what I was thinking about. The RKBA just isn’t a right in most countries, and I think that learning about this fact let’s us appreciate America more.
I’d also like to thank TTAG 🙂
While land mass wise they are pretty close, Brazil has about half the population of the US. Yet in comparison slightly less than 13,000 people were murdered in the US, by comparison 49,900 were killed in Brazil. These are deaths considered homicides, not suicides or even justifiable homicides.
As civilians are systematically disarmed I would think we would see murder rates, and violent crime increase. So now we will wait and see.
It very well is the antis here wet dream. However it would never work here. They would have to repeal that pesky second amendment. Even then, they can have my guns when they first take my bullets at about 2400 FPS, and then pry them from my cold dead hands.
300 AAC? .30-30? Or a .308 with a super short barrel?
I’m just curious as to what your 2400 FPS gun is.
In the interest of sharing, I’m running from about 850 FPS to 3200 FPS in my collection (.38 Special on the low end, .338 up top).
8mm Lebel? 😉
Seven point six two by thirty nine.
Clocking in at about 2200 fps in my designated cold-dead-hands rifle. Heck, the whole family could join in if they wanted, though they’d be limited to 1100 fps, give or take a bit. 🙂
Citizens tend to get the governments they deserve. If peaceful protesting is as far as the Brazillians are willing to go, then I have no pity for them. Same goes for the United States. If we allow our burgeoning monarchy to continue to go unchecked, other than the sheep-like bleating we’ve heard so far, then we have no one to blame but ourselves. Our Forefathers would likely be shooting by now…
No, they wouldn’t. They tried everything they could to remedy their condition peacefully until backed into a corner; and even then debated with themselves whether fighting or capitulation was the better course of action. Yes, they eventually fought, but they knew what the cost would be and put it off until there was no way to avoid it.
As to our “doing nothing”, have you missed the several articles in recent days about the spontaneous long arm open-carry protests in Texas, etc? How about last year when AWB and mag-limits were a foregone conclusion – no way to stop them – even by the editors of this site…and all of it got stopped cold by public opinion? Or the pushback that’s pruning Democrat legislators in Colorado and would have seen the civilian-disarmament law overturned if not for a fiat resignation by one of the state senators?
Not happening as fast as you’d like isn’t the same thing as not happening at all.
And personally, I’d prefer the nonviolent methods that our founders bequeathed to us over the shoot-em-up stuff. You want to fight in a war, go overseas and pick one. Or enlist – they’ll PAY YOU to fight overseas. We don’t need a war here.
3%
This is funny – it’s also a good showcase for wishful thinking. In one of the most corrupt countries in the world, they expect this to be enforced. It’s staggering to think how bad the crime will be. Eles são muito estúpido.
My fiancée is Brazilian, and I spent some time studying the gun laws because I contemplated moving down there. Needless to say, she’ll be moving up here instead.
For most people there, guns aren’t really a thing. Like in the UK it’s mostly something that goes on between criminals and the cops, until it’s you getting assaulted. Civilian disarmament already happened basically. A Glock 25 costs about 4000 reais, each round will run you another 7. Plus 300 to register, and re-register yearly. You can only carry if you know a cop who will sign your paperwork. Image if it cost you almost 6000 to get a carry rig, and minumum wage is only 700 a month…It’s a rich mans game there.
It’s much more ludicrous than that. Check out thefirearmblog’s January 22nd article on “common homemade submachineguns in Brazil”.
Got a brother in law down there right now. He might be down with this, though, heh. Not sure if they’ll head back to the states ever? (went down there to marry a gal)
Samurai,
Brazil was one of many South American countries to shelter Nazi’s.
We on the other hand only took in scientists who worked on rockets and other stuff (regardless of what they did in the war).. We also gave a pass to the Japanese guy who tortured and killed American POW’s after WWII to get his “scientific” information from using chemical warfare on US prisoners..
We (our leaders) have always been high principled.
The grunt in Afghanistan, the sailor and the low ranked airmen are the only principled people in the military I know and I met way too many high ranked idiots . . .don’t get me started!
Heh! You should work in the Pentagon. Your head would explode.
A follow up, Robert failed to mention the firearm limits. If I remember correctly you can have to pistols and two long arms. They have to be designated for personal protection or range use. They cannot be interchanged, i.e. Your personal defense gun has to stay at home, and the range gun can only be used at the range. Any use outside of the stated purpose results in immediate confiscation. So if you want to practice with your carry gun, you have to buy a second one!
Any necked cartridges are restricted for LEO and Military use only, and any caliber 9mm or over. Of course, none of these restrictions apply to criminals, who get whatever they want, for much cheaper.
Didn’t Brazil’s government try this in 2006 and got voted down in referendum?
This is not a new law — nor is it the law in Brazil now, apparently — the 2003 law (in the link anyway) is the same one that WAS VOTED DOWN (like 67% voted down) in the 2005 referendum necessary to make it effective.
All respect to Robert — but he has hooked a large chunk of trollbait on this one.
NRA was all over this at the time:
http://www.nraila.org/news-issues/articles/2006/why-you-should-care-about-brazil.aspx
Correction — the 2003 law is in effect, the full gun ban went down in the referendum.
Still– way old news.
Although I am confident she will hold up Brazil as a beacon of “common sense”, I just don’t think Shannon Watts will be spending her Bloomberg bucks traveling there . . . John is a slight man and probably unable to defend her from attackers drawn by her “come hither Pablo” eyes. Unless he is into that kind of sex play.
And then with the last sentence I realized I was reading a Dirk Diggler post…
True, but in a broader sense, there is now a new meaning behind, “going Brazilian.”
Especially for Mike B. and Shannon W. on their “fact finding” trips there.
Oh how this article just became epic from three simple posts ahahahaha!
“The grunt in Afghanistan, the sailor and the low ranked airmen are the only principled people in the military I know and I met way too many high ranked idiots . . .don’t get me started!”
Agreed. For the most part correct overall. On occasion one would/could meet, and serve with a good officer but those few were prior Enlisted and to better clarified a time frame say early 70’s maybe 80’s.
Present day military. B.S. and politics often negates most potential wishful hopes. Oh then there the school boys and girls W.P., Annapolis etc forget it self absorbed tow the party line, climb the ladder smoochers.
This is all because the government wants to minimized armed insurrection. Every decade or two the govt goes into a spending binge(printing money) causing run away inflation making everyday goods expensive and the inevitable currency crisis. Another is coming soon. The same path we are on, they just seem to do it faster.
Brazil, the country where homeless children are round up by the police and executed in the name of “cleaning up” the streets, where drug gangs rule neighborhoods with such control and corruption the police won’t even bother, where the violence against women is astronomical. Of course they don’t want responsible people who want to be free to have weapons to protect themselves!
Does anyone have a breakdown of the murder rates for Brazil’s barrios, wealthy areas and rural areas?
Wasn’t Brazil outed for having death squads doing what death squads do?
Oh, that was just bad press because Argentina was vying for the World Cup or some such foolishness. But they’re all done for now…
Don’t ignore the fact that in this gun-grabber’s Utopia, the cops mount heavily-armed assaults one barrio neighborhood at a time to regain “control” until they leave to mount an assault on the next. Somewhat reminiscent of Viet Nam in hardware and tactics. As well as long-term success. But what the Hell, the Federal Police have neverending employment.
As an aside, the biggest growth industry is “rich Gringo kidnapping.” Cops just don’t care; they’re busy with other matters (see above). I remember a couple of years back State was quietly advising [rich] people traveling there to hire a helicopter to get around in, as opposed to anything on the ground.
Jus Bill,
Imagine if all of the criminals in Chicago holed up on one giant hill with 300,000 people and ran their criminal empire from there. That is basically what the bairros on the morros in Rio are. You should watch Elite Troop 2 if you haven’t already.
It isn’t so much that the cops mount assaults to take the rights away from the citizens like the no knock raids here in america. Rather they go up into a declared war zone to try and eliminate the criminal element, if you know where all the drug traffickers are, you might as well go there.
International Fascism on the rise in Brazil seems Hitler did clone himself and now the leader of Brazil.
This is the type of article where I go into full flamethrower mode on some dumb liberal arts major’s ass:
“From 1997 to 2007, the state’s homicide rate fell 50.3%, from 12,552 to 6,234.”
Those are numbers of incidents, NOT “homicide rates.” A rate has to be a ratio – homicides per capital, or homicides per 100K, or homicides per unit of time.
This is the sort of full-retard stupidity that results from the rampant innumeracy brought about by public skrool teachers.
“One year after the legislative package is enacted, all manufacturers’ guns must include micro-stamping. [NB: That would mean Brazilian-based Taurus will have CA-compatible semis.]”
No, it would just mean that Taurus isn’t selling it’s wares to the citizens of it’s home nation, because micro-stamping is still a fantasy technology.
Is the government going to split the take with the criminals? I’m sure o will fly down to see how its done./// You know, I read where a grain processing plant exploded & took half the town with it, steel girders & I beams went like swiss cheese. Next up, Brazil confiscates…wait for it…dust, Randy
One word; Stupid
I`m Italian, but I was born and raised in Brazil. Unfortunately I`m still living in this hell-hole.
We won 2005 referendum, but government don`t give a shit.
BUT there is much more than what was exposed here.
Even if you comply with every aspect of the law, and present every certificate required, most people have to require in court a Civil Rights Protective Injunction in order to buy guns and renewing registration certificates.
And there is more! About the official number and homicide statistics, they are at least 18.3% bigger than those released by government.
IPEA, an ONG under governmental funding, surprisingly, found that each year at least 8.600 homicides are being categorized as other crimes or as deaths without known cause. http://www.ipea.gov.br/portal/images/stories/PDFs/TDs/td_1848.pdf (PAGE 35 of 64 of the pdf file, and 33 of 56 of the actual document.)
Less than 8% of homicides in Brazil have a known a perpetrator, and conviction rates and time paid in jail are jokes.
Even in those less than 8% solved homicides, including domestic violence homicides and motor-traffic fights, the author usualy have a criminal record for things like agression, drug traficking or robbery, but government lie to people saying that normal law abiding people just get mad and start killing each other. That people who have legal guns are timebombs.
In the 92% unresolved cases both M.O. and victim profile show that the motivation for the homicide is drug debt and disputes betwen criminals.
I believe the game changer regarding gun-control not only for Brazil, the United States or any other country around the world is that of Digital Printing! The Brazilian government has a serious problem with trying to over tax everything, and in the area of guns and weapons, this is just going to lead people to seek out other alternatives. Digital printing is a serious revolution for the world with regard to the ability to print many products, and one of these products with regard to Brazil is going to be handguns!
Bernard Asagai – http://www.ExcitingRio.com
Brazil is already in a low grade state of civil war, and this will accelerate and exacerbate the situation.
Send your opinion to gov’t Brazil
http://washington.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/brazilian_consulates_in_the_us.xml
The Olympic committee and the UN have requested this law to be put into effect before the arrival of the world and its ‘elites’ to view the games…imho
I am a San-Dan (3rd degree Black Belt) in Judo. I don’t need a weapon because I am one !