Essay - weapons

WEAPONS IN BRAZIL

Until September of 2010 circulated in Brazil about 16 million guns, from this, 14 million are in civil society. Under State’s responsibility are 2 million, 13% of the total calculated. The Ministry of Justice estimates that about 20 million weapons are in circulation in the country, only 1.5 million legally, only Rio de Janeiro has about 650,000 registered weapons and 1 million at least circulating illegally. In São Paulo, the Military Police estimated that 4.5 million weapons are in circulation.

There are in the hands of Brazilian 7.6 million illegal weapons, just under 8.4 million legalized. In Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul is the state with the largest number of registered weapons per inhabitant and it remains the lowest homicide rates, far short of the standards of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

In the weapons’ industry in Brazil, there are five companies, since 2005: Forges Taurus SA, IMBEL, CBC, ER Amantino and Amadeo Rossi S.A. Overall, the large majority of the market is turned to the foreign market, and this path has been set course from the Disarmament’s Statute. Because of that Taurus leadership in civil internal market could be the most impaired. This occurs because Imbel is a public company under the Ministry of Defense and its main objective is the army forces, and the others companies produce ammunition and hunting weapons. In addition, there is the illegal weapons’ market where people buys weapons with no registration and the most of time those weapons are imported from others countries, Paraguay, for example is one of the largest importers of Brazilian arms.

        The police has not any control of this illegal market, anyone can buy a gun they want to. Based on this fact, the statistics just grow, somewhere around 82 young people between 16 and 29 years old are murdered every 24 hours, 56,000 people were murdered in Brazil in 2012, 30 thousand young people and among them, 77% were black. According to the State System of Data Analysis Foundation (Seade), 28.1 in every 100.000 brazilians are murdered each year. The country also leads the statistic of people injured by firearms during a crime (247.15 per 100.000 inhabitants) and the second place on the planet where more people die involved in accidents with firearms. Together, all these victims account for nearly 40.000 people shot to death in Brazil every year

        Criminals who live in slums cause most of the crimes, they go out to commit crimes such as assaults and robberies, sometimes, looking for money to buy drugs. However, gang fights, passionate crimes and police vs bandits’ confrontations also raise the death statistics. The easy path to get guns are responsible for each death of people. There are victims of stray bullets, of assaults, of people who got angry and just shoot them, for a fool reason. In Brazil already happened many episodes of shootings and kidnaps where the killers got easily the guns and ammunitions, and then, killed innocent people for any real reasons.

        In some states of the country, the police are increasing patrols and organizing searches for illegals weapons. Disarmament campaigns have helped a little to reduce the ridiculous amount of weapons in Brazil. However, with the negative result of the referendum for the prohibition or non- ban the sale of firearms or ammunition in the country, this campaign has lost some strength. There are already politicians in the chamber of deputies voting for the end of the disarmament statute, social movements willing to give the population defense power with the use of weapons.

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