On June 21, 2000, with Y2K fear finally overcome, The New York Times expressed concern for a new reason, the stark increase in crime in Brazil:
Faced with growing public alarm over a wave of crime, the Brazilian government decreed an immediate ban today on the sale of firearms. The move came as part of a broader $1.7 billion ''national security plan'' intended to reduce urban violence and reform the police during the next three years.
The security package, which President Fernando Henrique Cardoso announced in a nationally televised speech today, also includes $185 million to be spent this year alone on improved training and equipment for state and city police. Local police forces throughout this country of 175 million are widely viewed as trigger-happy, corrupt and incompetent, with many officers barely literate and earning salaries of $300 a month or less.
The reasoning seemed impeccable. If there is a problem with crime, and criminals are using guns, banning the sale of guns will make them harder to obtain, and crime will go down.
Crime on the rise
The unfortunate reality is that this did not happen. According to official data from the World Bank, the homicide rate in 2000 was 26 per 100,000 inhabitants. At that time, it had risen for eight consecutive years. After the anti-gun measure was adopted, the homicide rate continued to rise, with ups and downs, until 2017 (31 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants). However, the homicide rate has taken a steep dive since then: 27 in 2018, 21 in 2019, and 22 in 2020.
More guns, more crime?
Current President Jair Bolsonaro has a different approach to fighting crime than Cardoso: allowing the possession and private use of weapons within the bounds of the law. The fears of Bolsonaro's critics are based on the assumption that a measure that legalizes the purchase of weapons will make it easier for criminals to buy them. The logic follows that with easier access to guns, they will be able to commit more crimes.
According to The Wall Street Journal, "Violence experts say adding more guns to the mix without addressing the root causes of crime will only make the murder rate rise faster."
The reasoning is logical, but not sufficient. There are elements of reality that it does not consider. For example, criminals do not stop purchasing guns when buying them is illegal. If they need guns to break other laws, they will not respect this one. Moreover, the purchase of illegal weapons cannot be traced, so even if the buying guns is legalized, criminals will always prefer the black market. Legalization does not necessarily expand crimanals' ability to purchase firearms.
Five times more armed citizens
However, legalization does affect law-abiding citizens. The legalizations of arms approved under Bolsonaro has boosted the number of legally armed civilians from 117,000 to 673,000. Today in Brazil, there are more legally armed citizens than police officers (just over 400,000).
The question, then, is what effect will widespread gun ownership have in a country with such high crime rates? So far, the limited data available shows that the number of firearm deaths has not increased.
Jair Bolsonaro became president on Jan. 1, 2019, and he approved a policy facilitating the purchase of weapons that same month. From the standpoint of gun ownership, the measure has been a huge success. The number of gun owners in Brazil has increased fivefold in just three years. But has it reduced crime?
20,000 lives saved
It appears that The Wall Street Journal's so-called experts who predicted the murder rate to rise either did not research the issue well enough or were just plain wrong.
According to official data for 2021, Brazil's homicide rate fell to the lowest number in 15 years, decreasing 34% to 18.5 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. This means that more than 20,000 lives have been saved. It's not just homicides: "The number of bank robberies also dropped by 36% in 2021," the government shared.
