Bullet-Riddled Brazil Puts Gun Measure in Place

To live in this city and other urban areas of Brazil is to hear the frequent rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire, a sound that even young children can recognize. As many as 20 million firearms are in circulation in this nation of 180 million people, who suffer from one of the highest rates of gun deaths in the world.

Now, officials hope to stem that tide with an ambitious plan to disarm the populace. Under a new law hailed by supporters as the most sweeping gun-control measure in South America, only Brazilians with valid reasons -- police and security guards, for example -- are allowed to carry firearms in public. Ordinary citizens who own guns must either register their weapons, turn them in or face jail time.

Proponents of the law, which took effect this month, see it as a badly needed step toward ridding this country of weapons too easily acquired and too often used to kill. Critics call it a misguided attempt that will do little to take guns out of the hands of drug dealers and other violent criminals who build their private arsenals through a flourishing illegal arms trade.

No one, however, disputes the statistics that have made shooting deaths commonplace in Brazil, where officials say someone is killed by a bullet every 12 minutes. That adds up to more than 40,000 such fatalities each year, many of them children.

By contrast, the United States, which has 100 million more people, recorded about 30,000 gun deaths in 2001, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“In six years, the U.S. lost 56,000 men in Vietnam. We have almost a Vietnam each year in Brazil,” said Antonio Rangel Bandeira of Viva Rio, a nonprofit group that championed the changes. “I show the figures to people in other places and they say, ‘Which country is Brazil at war against?’ ”

The debate over stricter gun controls in Brazil echoes that in the United States. Gun-control advocates here find themselves up against a similarly established culture of gun possession, partly born of a romanticized rough-and-tumble frontier past in which cowboys, rebels and vigilantes helped expand the country’s settlements and borders.

The newly tightened rules are the fruit of years of lobbying by gun-control activists, who were stymied by a powerful domestic firearms industry aided, at times, by the National Rifle Assn. in the United States. Gun-control advocates credit a new left-leaning government and growing public anger over crime with shifting the political winds in their favor.

Passed by the legislature in December, the law requires background checks for prospective buyers, raises the legal age for gun ownership from 21 to 25, demands that all guns be registered and imposes prison sentences of up to four years for violators.

To encourage current owners to hand in their weapons instead of simply registering them, the government has set aside $3.3 million for a buy-back program that offers as much as $100 per firearm -- more than a month’s minimum wage and a considerable windfall for poor Brazilians.

Perhaps most significant, the law calls for a national referendum next year asking voters whether gun sales should be banned. Polls show strong public support for such a move.

That dismays Renato Conill, vice president of Forjas Taurus. The company is one of Brazil’s largest gun manufacturers, with annual revenue exceeding $40 million through domestic sales and exports to more than 80 countries.

“We don’t believe that by restricting honest citizens’ access to legal firearms, the crime rate will lessen,” Conill said. “Legal weapons aren’t a cause of crime.... The disarmament law will simply stimulate the black market.”

Before, buying a gun in Brazil was an easy affair: A customer had only to show identification and produce proof of employment to be eligible.

Now, potential buyers are subject to more rigorous background checks. Anyone with a criminal record will be denied.

But critics note that drug traffickers and organized-crime rings obtain their stockpiles illegally anyway and thus will not be affected.

Many of these gangs’ arsenals include weapons stolen from authorities or bought from Brazil’s legions of corrupt police.

The criminals’ audacity can be breathtaking: Two months ago, armed thugs raided an air force base on the outskirts of Rio, holding several guards hostage before making off with two dozen assault rifles and loads of ammunition.

The gangs can also be clever. Within days of the new law taking effect, a newspaper in the city of Porto Alegre reported that rival drug traffickers there were essentially outbidding the government, offering residents more money for their guns than the federal buy-back program.

“We think the law is important, but for it to be applied, we first have to disarm criminals,” said Julio Pinheiro, secretary of public security in the state of Amazonas. “We also have to combat corrupt police. Corrupt police are worse than your common criminal.”

Bandeira acknowledged that the law was not a complete solution but said its aim was to convince the wider populace of the evils of toting firearms.

The country’s tradition of gun ownership, coupled with soaring crime rates, has led many Brazilians to arm themselves.

“To have a gun for self-defense brings risk, not protection,” Bandeira said. “All the statistics show that. The level of suicides among teenagers, accidents among children, homicides in crimes of passion, fights among neighbors -- that’s the situation. To have guns brings danger, provoking deaths among good people.”

He takes heart from the example of Parana state in southern Brazil, which instituted its own buy-back program in January.

Despite offering lower payouts than the federal government, Parana officials have already collected 20,000 guns, and the rate of gun violence has fallen.