Brazilian Voters Strongly Reject Gun Ban

Reuters ^ | 24 Oct 2005 00:31:51 GMT | Terry Wade and Todd Benson

[Fun Bob]

AO PAULO, Brazil, Oct 23 (Reuters) - From sprawling cities plagued by violence to the backwaters of the Amazon, Brazilians voted decisively on Sunday to keep gun sales legal in the country with the world's highest death toll from firearms.

About 64 percent rejected banning arms sales in the nationwide referendum, the electoral court said, with more than 90 percent of the expected 122 million votes counted.

Only 36 percent supported the ban, even though some 36,000 people were killed by guns last year in Latin America's largest country. Full results were expected on Monday.

"We didn't lose because Brazilians like guns. We lost because people don't have confidence in the government or the police," said Denis Mizne of anti-violence group Sou da Paz.

Many voters had expressed concern before the vote that a ban would leave them defenseless against heavily armed criminals. Public confidence is low in a police force widely seen as inefficient, abusive and corrupt.

"This referendum ... is not going to end violence," said Assis Augusto Pires, 60, who voted against the ban in Sao Paulo's wealthy Jardim Paulistano district, where high walls, electrified fences and private guards protect residents.

In Rio de Janeiro's Rocinha shantytown, scene of a raging gangland turf war, Carlos Eduardo Ferreira, a 40-year-old electrician, said he was voting for the ban.

"I am for the ban; I am for life. I've already seen kids hit by bullets here," he said.

Spotlighting the issue, a young girl was wounded by a stray bullet as police clashed with drug traffickers in Rio de Janeiro's Dende slum on Saturday night, police said.

In Minas Gerais state, a supporter of gun sales shot and wounded a ban backer during a bar argument on Friday.

The ban failed in all 26 states and the federal district of Brasilia. Rural areas rejected it overwhelmingly.

"This region is very isolated. If you don't have a gun here you don't have protection," said Igor Dedea, a logger in the rainforest state of Para.

INTENSE CAMPAIGNING

Campaigning had been intense.

Surveys done a month ago had shown most people favored the ban, but recent polls swung the other way. Groups favoring the ban accused gun makers of funding a big gun rights campaign and manipulating people's fears.

The result, which could influence other developing countries, is being watched by U.S. lobbying groups like the National Rifle Association.

If the referendum had passed, all sales of guns and ammunition in Brazil would have been halted, although public safety officers, private security firms and sport clubs would still have been able to buy them.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his wife Marisa Leticia both voted for the ban. "I think that for an ordinary person to have firearms is not going to give security, so I voted 'Yes,'" Lula said.

Many blamed the loss on a bribes scandal that has weakened Lula's government and hurt his popularity.

"This loss stems partly from the political crisis that broke in June," said Congressman Raul Jungmann, who voted for the ban.

Violence is rampant throughout Brazil, from the cities to the Amazon jungle and bloodshed and violence are a daily concern.

The United Nations ranks Brazil second behind only Venezuela in per capita gun deaths, with 22 for every 100,000 people. In absolute terms it leads the world, with more than 36,000 shot and killed last year, government figures show.

That is down from 39,000 in 2003, a drop pro-ban groups attribute to a government-sponsored gun buy-back program. In contract, the United States, with 296 million people to Brazil's 186 million, has about 30,000 gun deaths per year.

In Jardim Panorama, a rough Sao Paulo shantytown, lots of people voted "no." If gun sales were banned, low-paid police might dabble in arms trafficking, said Joao Rodrigues Magalhaes, a 40-year-old machine operator.

[pickrell]

But then, I just know they simultaneously ran the story of the 400 thousand Tutsis who were hacked to death in machete-related violence against those who owned no guns in Rwanda.

Or, am I mistaken there too? Forget my own head next...

[B Knotts]

Anyhow, if there's any Brazilians lurking: well done!

It's very reasurring to know that some people outside of the U.S. still "get it" when it comes to the right to keep and bear arms.

The global elite would like to get all our guns, but now the U.S. and Brazil stand firmly in their way.

[El Gato]

Sixty four percent of the people rejected the ban, but Reuters could only find those supporting the ban to interview and quote in their article.

And all 26 states along with the federal district (equivalent to DC), voted:

No. Del Infierno.

[Southack]

Brazil's vote for gun rights and against the ban is a great thing.

Please note that this ban of all firearms was enacted in Brazil in 2003. The vote this week was of the people of Brazil to essentially reject what their legislature did back in 2003.

After the ban passed the brazilian legislature in 2003, Brazil changed their crime reporting methods. That change showed a drop in "gun deaths" from 39,000 to 36,000 in 2004.

But the people of Brazil saw firsthand that their crime rate was increasing.

One can only presume that's why they voted down the ban when they finally had the chance.

Congrats to the people of Brazil! Moreover, this deals another defeat to Lula's corrupt left-wing government.

Life is good.

[El Gato]

Easy for someone who probably has layers of bodyguards, for herself himself and for her his wife and children, to say.

Oops

[Colonel_Flagg]

Funny how those stories always seem to get spiked, isn't it?

[atomic conspiracy]

I have lived and worked in Brazil. I guarantee that rural people there, rich and poor alike, would simply ignore such a ban to the extent that they could.
From the sertao (backwoods farmer) with his single-shot shotgun or ancient Mauser to the landowner with a state-of-the-art bullpup rifle, nobody, but nobody, would voluntarily go unarmed in large areas of the country.
The police are a laughingstock, with the exception of a few widely scattered elite units whose concern is not crime against the poor.
The military police are more respected, but they defer to the civil police buffoons in areas where the latter exist at all. Ironically, this means that decent law enforcement is the norm only in wild frontier areas, since that is where the military police are in charge.
I did have a Brazilian firearms license, a complex piece of paperwork for foreigners, and I still have the Taurus .38 revolver I bought at the factory for about $50 in 1978.

[CommandoFrank]

IANSA’s work has been supported by funders including the Governments of UK, Belgium, Sweden and Norway, as well as the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Compton Foundation, Ploughshares Fund, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Open Society Institute, Samuel Rubin Foundation and Christian Aid.

How ironic it would be that someday these nutcakes would be in a position whereas their first thought would be "Damn, wish I had a gun..."

[El Gato]

"Now, a lot of Brazilians are insisting on their right to bear arms, they don't even have a pseudo right to bear arms. It's not in their Constitution."

The US Constitution did not grant or create the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, it merely protects it.

As old Tommy Jeff wrote:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness

[Fido969]

Amazing that although the supporters of the ban are a small minority of the population - they made up most of the sources for the article.

[coloradan]

From Reuters? I'm shocked, SHOCKED! I tell you.

Roto-Reuters - all the news that's fit to spin.

[CurlyDave]

"We didn't lose because Brazilians like guns. We lost because people don't have confidence in the government or the police," said Denis Mizne of anti-violence group Sou da Paz.

NEWS FLASH -- You lost because you got fewer votes. By about 2 to 1.

Now quit spinning and go away.

[El Gato]

With more than 92 percent of the votes counted, 64 percent of Brazilians were opposed to the ban, while 36 percent backed it, said election officials, giving the 'no' position an insurmountable lead.

The final tally will likely be even more lopsided. The places out in the boonies always have their votes counted last, and they are the same sort of places that have voted overwhelmingly against the ban.

[KoRn]

Damn good for them! So rare these days to hear of another country aside from ours having any good sense these days. I wonder if the UN will move to sanction them until this is reversed.

[ChefKeith]

We did this in '94 and one got shoved down our throats anyway so I think it will still happen down there.

[El Gato]

That's what I like to hear, except the part about them not liking guns.

I suspect the guy quoted doesn't like them , but Brazilians in general like them just fine. They certainly make some pretty nice ones. Rossi, Taurus, and Imbel are some of the more familiar names of Brazilian gun makers.

[FlyVet]

"It's a stunning defeat for the global gun control movement. They poured millions of dollars and millions more man hours trying to enact this gun ban and they failed. The aim of this gun ban movement was to use Brazil as the rallying point to enact gun bans in the United States. We're happy they were defeated," he said.

[claudiustg]

---well, I guess the Left in Brazil will now try to go through the courts or maybe the government will just pass a law anyway.---

Just what I was thinking. California style.

[ncountylee]

The press had said it was close before the vote. LOL

[El Gato]

How ironic it would be that someday these nutcakes would be in a position whereas their first thought would be "Damn, wish I had a gun..."

Rest assured, they will have them, or at least bodyguards with them. It's the common people who won't and will thus be at the mercy of criminal thugs, criminal governments, and terrorist Jihadies.