Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

BRAZIL: Sudden Shift in Public Opinion Could Torpedo Gun Ban

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 21 2005 (IPS) - It seemed inevitable that the legal sale of firearms and ammunition was soon to become a thing of the past in Brazil, but a sudden shift in public opinion indicates that Brazilians could very well end up voting against a proposed gun ban in a referendum Sunday.

Up until September, the polls showed that over 70 percent of respondents planned to vote in favour of the prohibition on firearms sales. But with the referendum just around the corner, surveys now indicate that more people will vote against the initiative than for it.

Many believe that the radio and television campaigns launched by both supporters and opponents of the ban were responsible for this about-face in public opinion.

This Sunday, more than 122 million Brazilians over 16 will be able to vote yes or no to the question: “Should the commerce in guns and ammunition be prohibited in Brazil?”

If a majority vote yes, they will essentially be ratifying the nationwide ban on gun sales established in the disarmament law passed by the federal government in December 2003.

A survey released a week ago showed that only 45 percent of those interviewed planned to vote yes, while 49 percent would be voting no. Another poll published Wednesday revealed even greater opposition to the gun ban, with only 33.7 percent supporting it and 52.1 percent voting against it.

Leonardo Arruda, the public relations director of the National Association of Firearm Owners and Dealers (ANPCA), told IPS that many voters had changed their minds “because for the first time there was a debate, while in the past there has only been propaganda. Now we have been able to speak out, and encourage the people to think and to reach a conclusion based on logic.”

Since Oct. 1, both the Front for the Right to Legitimate Defence, which is opposed to the gun ban, and the Front for a Gun-Free Brazil, which supports it, have been allotted 10 minutes a day of free broadcasting time on national public radio and television to air their views, in keeping with the country’s electoral laws.

For his part, Antonio Rangel Bandeira, the disarmament coordinator for Viva Rio, the non-governmental organisation heading up the “yes” campaign, said that a group of factors have played into the hands of those who oppose the gun ban.

Concerns over the state of public security, fuelled by the drastic rise in urban violence over the last two decades, have been used by the leaders of the “no” campaign to present themselves as a protest movement against the government of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, falsely equating a “yes” vote with a pro-government stance, Rangel told IPS.

Opponents of the gun ban maintain that the prohibition of legal sales of firearms and ammunition will only serve to “disarm honest people,” while criminals will continue to be armed. This in turn will allegedly encourage thieves to break into homes, since they know that the homeowners will have no weapons with which to defend themselves.

The most frequently repeated argument, that the possibility of purchasing firearms guarantees a means of legitimate self-defence, “a democratically conquered right that the government wants to take away from the people,” has successfully won over a significant number of voters to the “no” side, said Rangel.

Moreover, he added, the wording of the question put forward in this Sunday’s referendum will also generate confusion and lead many to mistakenly vote “no”.

“For years we have been telling people, say ‘no’ to guns, and now they will have to vote yes in order to support this position,” he explained. In fact, the last survey released indicated that 14 percent of respondents changed their answer when the question was repeated a second time.

Those who are against the gun ban have also painted the pro-disarmament stance as one of prohibition, as opposed to freedom. A great many people have appeared on television saying they would never use guns themselves, but that they defend the right of others to choose to own them for self-defence.

“The rich can hire private guards, they’re privileged, they don’t need their own guns,” but the poor have to defend themselves and should therefore be allowed to buy guns if they are able to, declared Eliete Ferrer, a teacher.

Nevertheless, one of the polls reflected the reverse: the majority of the wealthier, better educated respondents planned to vote no to the gun ban, while most of the less affluent were in favour of prohibiting gun sales.

According to Leoncio Maia, a 63-year-old economist and self-declared leftist, this is because the rich read Veja magazine, which explicitly defends the free commerce of firearms, while the poor watch the Globo TV network, which supports the ban.

In his opinion, only popular militias armed with rifles and heavy weaponry could effectively combat the rising crime in Brazil’s cities. “If everyone was armed, there would be less violence,” he stated.

Views like these reflect the strange alliance forged between the far right and some sectors of the left, “headed up by the former,” in the name of guns for the people, said Rangel.

The explanations and statistics about tragedies sparked by guns in the hands of non-criminals were ineffective for winning people over to the “yes” side, “perhaps because they are too complex,” he acknowledged.

The majority of gun-related deaths result from disputes between individuals without criminal records, while only five percent of fatal shootings are committed during robberies, according to official statistics in Sao Paulo, as Deniz Mizne, director of the I’m For Peace Institute, highlighted in an open letter circulated on the Internet.

In Rio de Janeiro, a study showed that 61 percent of the firearms used by criminals had initially been purchased legally, he added, as further evidence to support the gun ban.

Gun-related deaths fell by 8.2 percent last year in comparison with the previous year, according to Health Ministry statistics, and this decline has been attributed to the disarmament campaign launched in July 2004, through which citizens are paid to turn their guns over to the authorities. Some 467,000 firearms have been collected so far, according to the latest figures, released Thursday.

If the “no” vote wins out in Sunday’s referendum, as the polls are currently predicting, Arruda hopes the Supreme Court will rule that much of the 2003 disarmament law is unconstitutional.

Arruda commented that the law has already seriously impacted the legal commerce in firearms by prohibiting civilians from carrying guns in public and placing tight restrictions on gun ownership in general.

He said his greatest fear now is that the government will become even more lax about ensuring public security and blame those who blocked the ban on the sale of small arms.

Rangel, on the other hand, warned that right-wing opponents of disarmament, who have become more highly organised as a result of the referendum campaign and would be “legitimised” by the victory of the no vote, could now go on to impose a “fascist” public security policy, including the death penalty, a reduction in the age at which minors can be charged as adults, greater police brutality, and an upsurge in private security guards and prisons, emphasising individual security over collective security.