This is a bra-zillion.
Posted on 10/23/2005 8:11:54 PM PDT by 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.
At least we don't have Columbian drug lords and Communist Venezuelans right on our border. Nor Maoist Shining Path guerrillas either.
Ive said it once on FR and ill say it again, the govt will never have my guns.. I will never register them. They can all kiss my american, gun toting, SUV driving, good ole boy ass!
'From my cold dead hands!!!'
I lived in Brazil for 2 years as a missionary. The problem is that there aren't enough guns in Brazil. Normal people usually do not own a gun because they can't afford them. The "Civil" police carry .22, and .38 pistols. If you shoot someone with a .22 or .38 it's really gonna hurt and tick them off.
The "military" police usually carry 9mm pistols and sometimes have some sort of "assualt" rifle.
The police are always outgunned and outnumbered by the criminals, drug dealers, and thugs who all have AK-47's and Glocks which are illegal for a civilian to own.
"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"
Gee, some heavy sponsors of PBS broadcasting in the US. Go figure.
I was worried about this. Maybe there is some sanity left in the world after all...
This is a bra-zillion.
What do you bet? Rebuffed in Brazil, IANSA won't take it lying down. They'll immediately go for an easier win in another country, to turn the momentum around, then boom up the win in the MSM if they get it.
I agree with the idea that IANSA is actually stalking the United States and our Second Amendment. They're waging political war against the American idea.
Yes, you're probably right but I'll bet we'll never see America disarmed.
"Over my dead body...."
Handguns are like lawyers -- everyone claims to hate 'em, until they suddenly need one.
That law, coupled with a government-sponsored gun buyback program, has reduced deaths from firearms by about 8 percent this year, the Health Ministry said.
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
Yet we are repeatedly told that our homicides are high because we have don't have draconian legal restrictions on guns.
Both of these societies have far greater legal restrictions on guns than we do, and they have far larger homicide rates, yet they are never mentioned when the MSM talks gun control in the U.S.
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