SAO PAULO (AP) – Katia Sastre was taking her 7-year-old child to class in Suzano, a violent town near Sao Paulo, when she saw a young man firing a gun at other parents standing by the door in front of the school.
Within seconds, he pulled out the .38 special he was carrying in his purse.
The three shots of the off-duty police officer killed the robbers that morning in May 2018 and began turning her into a beacon for the champions of weaker gun control. Security camera footage produced medals, the power of social media stars, and a congressional run in the same conservative wave that lifted pro-arms MP Jair Bolsonaro from the presidency.
Now, even as a parliamentarian, she supports Bolsonaro’s effort to deliver a weapon to every Brazilian who wants one and rejects public safety experts’ concerns about the president’s four weapons decrees. They will take effect next month – unless Congress or the courts step in.
“Brazilians want insurance for self-defense because they feel insecure about crime,” Sastre told The Associated Press, blaming a 2003 disarmament law for increased violence and more than 65,000 violent deaths in Brazil in 2017. “The weapons used in those crimes were “t in the hands of citizens; they came illegally from traffickers and criminals. ”
Sastre is in the minority of Brazilians, of whom almost three quarters want stricter gun laws, according to the latest poll. However, the unpopular proposal is one of Bolsonaro’s top priorities for the development of his newly fueled political capital, even in the worst period of Brazil’s pandemic, with about 1,800 people dying every day.
Anti-gun activists, a former defense minister and former high-ranking police officers, including a former national secretary of public security, warn that the decrees will only add to the number of bodies.
The two most controversial decrees would increase the number of weapons Brazilians can hold – six out of four today – and allow them to carry two simultaneously. The police, the main supporters of the president, could have eight firearms if the decrees are valid.
Ilona Szabó, director of the security-focused Igarape Institute in Rio de Janeiro, pushed back Bolsonaro’s attempts to bring more weapons to Brazilians. Nominated for a national security council, she faced a flood of threats from Bolsonaro’s followers and had to flee the country. From abroad, she urges lawmakers and the country’s Supreme Court to overturn the measures.
Court judges are expected to rule within a few weeks on the first of at least 10 appeals against the decrees.
“There is no technical justification for these decrees; it is obvious that they make it difficult for the police and could end up favoring criminal organizations “, said Szabó.
The number of deaths caused by gunfire increased by 6% per year from 1980 to 2003, when the disarmament law was adopted. After that, the rate dropped to 0.9% by 2018, when it was fully implemented, according to the government’s IPEA’s Violence Atlas. This shows that fewer weapons translate into fewer deaths, Szabó said.
And, although homicides have risen in the years leading up to 2017, they have sunk in 2018 – before any measures to weaken arms control.
Bolsonaro’s pro-arms position was a trademark of his seven terms as a parliamentarian. In July 2018, he shocked opponents, teaching a small child how to make the sign with the gun that represented his presidential campaign.
When he took office in January 2019, a person could have two weapons, but had to undergo a onerous process of criminal record, employment, psychological and physical capacity and also write a statement explaining the need someone’s weapon.
The decrees of May 2019 allowed rural landowners to carry weapons over properties, increase annual ammunition allowances and allow registered shooters and hunters to transport weapons from their homes remotely.
Last month, Igarape and the Sou da Paz Institute, which investigates violence, said there were nearly 1.2 million legal weapons in the hands of Brazilians, up 65 percent from a month before Bolsonaro’s term began.
Bolsonaro, a former army captain who is nostalgic for Brazil’s three decades of military rule, said he wanted to arm citizens to prevent a dictatorship from taking hold. He suggested that armed citizens could counter local government restrictions on activity during the pandemic.
“An armed population will put an end to this game, because everyone has to stay home,” the president said on Christmas Eve.
The decrees also allow local councils of psychologists to give members of the firing range permission to possess weapons, rather than experts elected by the Brazilian Federal Police. And they are snatching from the army’s control over the sales of several caliber bullets, which makes them harder to track and increases annual ammunition quotas by up to five times.
These are welcome prospects for people like Eduardo Barzana, president of an American shooting club in a rural town in the state of Sao Paulo. Before a practice session, as he unloaded semi-automatic assault rifles and prepared his goggles, he explained why he hailed Bolsonaro’s moves to loosen the controls.
“Weapons are like mobile phones; the person behind them matters, ”Barzana said. “What the government is doing is benefiting from our sport and giving ordinary citizens the right to defend themselves.”
Former Secretary of Public Security José Vicente da Silva acknowledges that the decrees would help responsible owners, but says they will also make it easier for guns to fall into the wrong hands. One month after Sastre was sworn in as a parliamentarian, students at the school he once attended were shot dead; the attackers used weapons bought online.
“No one needs six or eight weapons for protection and there is no obvious reason to give so many weapons to shooters and hunters,” said da Silva, who retired from the Sao Paulo state police after three decades of service. . “The decrees make it almost impossible for the police to track down bullets or weapons. If this continues, we will have weapons depots, many of which have been bought by organized crime. ”
Some analysts have feared that the January US Chapter uprising could inspire an armed uprising of Bolsonaro’s supporters if he fails to win a second term in next year’s election.
Bolsonaro’s parliamentary son, Eduardo, a fellow gun rights activist and former federal police officer, visited the White House on the eve of the uprising. He later denied any connection to the invasion.
On March 8, Eduardo Bolsonaro told the newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo during a visit to Jerusalem that if US rebels had organized, they could have taken the Chapter and made their demands heard and had “a minimum of of warlike power ”to avoid the victims on their side. In 2018, he said only two soldiers will be needed to close the Supreme Court.
Statements such as those made by Szabó de la Igarape and other analysts warn that the risks to Brazil’s democracy are greater than in the United States.
“This rhetoric of politicizing the issue, with the president saying he will arm citizens against electoral blockade or fraud, is the Trump model,” Szabo said. “I saw what happened during the invasion of the Chapter, with the dead. It could have been worse. “
In the United States, arms sales reached an all-time high in January after the uprising and continued to grow the record that began with the pandemic. Arms sales often increase during election years, amid concerns that a new administration could change gun laws. US President Joe Biden has called for arms control measures, such as a ban on “assault weapons”.
In Brazil, both the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate won office last month, with the support of Bolsonaro. Congress analysts say none of them are likely to pass the president on an issue he considers so dear. The opposition is not strong enough to beat the votes needed to reject the decrees.
Caravans of Bolsonaro supporters drove through the streets of big cities on Sunday. Images that went viral on social media showed some holding weapons near the car windows.
“We work beyond public safety here; this is the field of politics, which is really serious, “said Raul Jungmann, former Minister of Defense and Public Security. “The arming of the people is always done in the service of coups, massacres, genocides and dictatorships.”