Arizona -(Ammoland.com)- Brazil has extremely strict gun control laws and relatively few firearms. It is estimated there are about 17 million firearms in Brazil. Only 5.4 million are legally owned by private parties. 2.2 million are owned by the military and police, and 9.5 million are illegally possessed. It would take centuries of rigorous enforcement of gun confiscation to reach that level in the United States, if it ever were possible. There are over 400 million firearms in private hands in the United States. A number comparable to Brazil’s 17 million guns and 200 million people would be 28 million guns for the United States 330 million people.
Brazil has a very high murder rate. Brazil’s level of murder is currently about 39 per 100,000 people. Brazil is in the top 20 nations for homicide in the world.
One of the candidates leading the field for October’s 2018 presidential election — hardline conservative Jair Bolsonaro — has promised to allow law-abiding citizens to arm themselves, a popular pledge in the nation with by far the most homicides of the entire world. Even before then, Congress may debate legislation to overturn the “disarmament statute,” a law that effectively bans civilian gun ownership, except in rare circumstances. The proposal would allow Brazilians with clean criminal records who pass psychological and firearm exams to buy up to six weapons.
“Everyday, everywhere you look, the criminal is armed with a high-powered weapon as the citizen tries to hide,” Rogerio Peninha Mendonca, the lawmaker behind the proposal, said in an interview. “What we want is for the citizen to be more capable of defending himself.”
by Ammoland.com
