Brazil: "Under the Gun in Rio"

[cuchulainn]

from Brazzil.com

http://www.brazzil.com/2003/html/news/articles/nov03/p118nov03.htm

Under the Gun in Rio

Sam Logan

Rio de Janeiro is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, affectionately known as the "marvelous city." But it is also one of the most deadly. The longer you stay in Rio, the greater your chance of a violent death. When one of the thousands of desperate poor decides to assault you, he will do so with a pistol, not a knife. Demonstrate even the slightest resistance and you will be shot. Firearms killed 40,000 Brazilians living in Rio de Janeiro last year. In a city where gun violence is out of control, arms control should be the first and most important goal of prudent public policy.

In the last week of October, the Brazilian Upper House of Congress unanimously voted to pass a bill that bans the possession of firearms by civilians and severely restricts their sale. The bill also stipulates that a plebiscite in 2005 will decide a complete ban on the sale and possession of firearms. If it passes in the Lower House, proponents are sure the President will sign it into law. Implementation will be challenging.

On the ground, problems caused by the proliferation of illegal firearms spiral upward. In January 2002, the Brazilian government officially admitted that it did not have control over the shantytowns of Rio de Janeiro. There are over 800 favelas, or shantytowns, in Rio. Organized criminal gangs control over half of them, which are home to some three million Brazilians. Within the ranks of organized crime, hundreds of militias, made up of thousands of young men and teenagers, carry automatic weapons while on patrol, day and night.

Just as often, military police raid the favelas with deadly precision and force. The cops kill as many drug-gang soldiers as they can. At the slightest detection of an ambush, they shoot first and ask questions second. The armed poor retaliate in kind. It is an unofficial, urban war.

Between December 1987 and November 2001, violent death claimed 3,937 of Rio de Janeiro's adolescents under the age of 18. In comparison, 467 minors died violently during the same four year period in the West Bank, a region considered a war zone by the United Nations.

Seasoned cops, many with scars from years of shootouts in the favelas, claim the difference between a dead rookie and a living veteran is the split second it takes to decide to shoot a child, because you never know if he is armed or not.

Perhaps more alarming is the fact that stray bullets, shot by untrained individuals, kill innocent civilians by the hundreds. Those who live in the favelas train themselves to roll off and then under their bed, without waking up, at the slightest sound of a firefight. Many use cinder blocks to defend themselves from stray bullets that pierce their bedroom wall with ease.

While random, senseless death and violent crime are consequences of the drug trade in Rio de Janeiro, the proliferation of cheap pistols and revolvers is another story. Anyone can ask around and find a cheap pistol and a handful of bullets. Clandestine gun dealers sell revolvers for as little as US$ 18, and if a vendor sells five a day, he is doing moderately well. If he sells ten, it's a good day. As a result, altercations between motorists, taxi drivers, or other civilians, which might normally become a shouting match or a fist fight, now frequently end in blood shed and often death.

Fortunately, civil society and a large number of Brazilians who live in Rio de Janeiro have come together to act against gun violence and illegal gun possession. On a rainy day this past August, some 50,000 Brazilians marched against gun violence. Months prior to the march, a survey of Brazilians in Rio de Janeiro revealed that over 80 percent are in favor of gun control. In a city where there are too many guns and too little trust in the police to protect citizens, the people have spoken out against firearms.

Nevertheless, the death toll continues to rise. Firearms have contributed to over 100,000 deaths in Brazil since 1991. While most people in Rio de Janeiro believe that arms control is the best solution to reducing violence, there remains significant resistance to a future where there are no clandestine gun sales and civilian gun possession is a rarity. Like in the United States, the arms lobby is very strong in Brazil. The implementation of an arms control law will require top-down initiation and broad cooperation between many officials, merchants, and private citizens.

Such widespread cooperation and respect for new legislation is not commonplace in Brazil. Yet when Brazilian politicians must choose between gun control and random, violent death in their country, not even the most conservative should need a moment to think. And for those who live in Rio de Janeiro, where every day might bring violent death, gun control is no longer a matter of debate. It is a matter of life and death. The beauty of Brazil's "marvelous city" will not reduce violence and needless death. Thousands of Brazilians hope their politicians, through passing the arms control bill, will.

Sam Logan is a freelance journalist living and working in Rio de Janeiro. He is from New Orleans, and is currently completing a Masters in International Policy Studies with the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California. He speaks English, Spanish and Portuguese and has lived in Costa Rica, Mexico, Chile, and Brazil off and on since 1998. Email for contact: [email protected]

 

[Oracle]

Cool. One more place goes on my "I will never visit there" list.

 

[Old Fuff]

They are absolutely right.

To stop this carnage all that’s necessary is to ban guns. After that there won’t be any.

Then everyone should turn in whatever guns they have. Too not do so would mean you weren’t law-abiding.

Of course that would mean that the law-abiding were disarmed while the illegal gun owners weren’t, but I’m sure you can see how that would make everyone much safer.

Why things would be so peaceful - just like in London, or Washington DC.

I think we should send Sarah and the Brady Bunch to help these good folks out.

 

[hammer4nc]

So here's a guy that is completing a masters degree in "International Policy Studies", arguing for strict gun control in Brazil. As if gun control doesn't already exist there. I do a google search on "brazil"+"gun control laws", and come up with this article in 2 minutes (christian science monitor, 1999):

http://search.csmonitor.com/durable/1999/08/10/p7s1.htm

excerpts:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A June ban on gun ownership in Rio triggers a federal push for a wider ban next month.

In June, the Rio de Janeiro state government passed one of the world's toughest gun laws, banning arms and ammunition sales to anyone but police, military, and private security forces. It prompted the federal government to propose a similar law.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Remember this article is 4 years old. No one is denying that Brazil has violence. I would expect a political science grad student to write about something like land reform, as a solution to the underlying poverty that begets violence. Better yet, he could write how gun control laws are totally ineffective...but no.

Instead he cut-and-pastes an obsolete editorial about gun control, and mails it in. Chances are he's really doing an in-depth study of thong bikini sizes on the various Rio beaches (can't blame him for that), but he had to whip up something political to satisfy his grant money for this semester. What a lame article.

 

[Checkman]

Yeah cool. Now the black market will have no competition whatsoever and the police will get to raid everybody. Should lead to some really cool firefights. Oh but wait I forgot. With this law there shall be peace and goodness throughout Brazil.
BLAH BLAH Blah

 

[Bill Hook]

In a city where there are too many guns and too little trust in the police to protect citizens, the people have spoken out against firearms.

That's some leap of logic in this sentence. Armed criminals and ineffective, corrupt police means that all law-abiding citizens should be without guns. Hmmm.

 

[rapaz]

His math doesn't really add up, either. 40,000 in Rio in one year, but 100,000 in Brazil in twelve years? There is an extra zero or two in that number, I think.

Rio and Sao Paulo have exciting crime rates (not up to Columbia's standards, but orders of magnitude higher than anywhere in the US), but unless you are a young, poor, dark-skinned man from a poor neighborhood, you aren't real likely to get shot. Rich businessmen are at risk of kidnapping (hence all the helicopters in SP), though, and property crimes are high. But just like everywhere, most of the violence is inflicted upon poor men by other poor men, and by and upon the police.

Parts of Mexico City and Kingston are very similar; there are a lot of books written about this.

Do note that all of these places have much stricter gun control than here, but the problem revolves around the intersection of poverty, drug trafficking, and politics combined with angry young men with nothing to lose.

 

[rock jock]

Law-abiding citizens SHOULD have guns, but it still won't solve the problem.

 

[Roadkill Coyote]

Let me see if I have this straight...

• There are three million people living in eight hundred pockets of abject poverty within the city of Rio.
• Half of those pockets are under the control of well armed "militias" created by organized criminal gangs.
• The primary source of weapons in and around these areas are "clandestine" dealers who are already risking imprisonment.
• The police and military are so poorly manned, supported, trained, and equipped, that the they regularly "go in shooting", and cannot regain effective control of these areas.
• The proposed remedy for this sitation is to choke off the supply of guns, even though it would take generations for it to have an effect (making the rather dubious assumption that it could ever work) because these uncontrolled areas will form a natural reservior for weapons illegally retained, smuggled into the country, purchased from corrupt officials.

With three million very unhappy people, and thousands of armed criminals operating out of near sanctuaries within the city, I think the government has done quite well so far to avoid a revolutionary blood bath. Radical new plans to change the balance should probably be very carefully considered though. The consequences of a policy that both fails to acheive the goal, and leads to further violence and feelings of disenfranchisement in the shantytowns could be somewhat counter-productive. no?

 

[Standing Wolf]

In a city where gun violence is out of control, arms control should be the first and most important goal of prudent public policy.

Yeah. It's worked a vertiable miracle in England recently.

If all else fails, Brazil, try criminal control.

 

[LoneStranger]

All I remember of Brazil is that in Recife they drive on the sidewalks at night without lights and the MeterMaids pack serious hardware.

And this was 30 years ago!