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Posted on 21-10-2004
Brazil’s Gun Buy-Back Program
By Sam Logan, October 15, 2004
Americas Program, Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC)
Marcelo Itagiba’s office is immaculate. His desk is a fine piece of
furniture, built of beautiful wood and adorned with intricately designed
carvings. Two cell phones, three land lines, and a radio surround his
organized work space. One phone or another rings every few minutes, some
attended, others not. He speaks fast and to the point, and does not repeat
himself. This is a man who measures his time not in money, but in lives.
Itagiba is the Sub-Secretary of Public Security for the state of Rio de
Janeiro, and, principally, the city of Rio de Janeiro . It is one of the
most violent cities in the world, where 80,000 people died of
firearm-related deaths between 1999 and 2003; where nearly every other day
an innocent bystander is killed by a stray bullet misfired by kids not yet
old enough to vote or join the military. The urban guerrilla war that
rages around the drug trade here has reached unprecedented levels of
violence and brutality.
One goal motivates Itagiba--to keep the citizens of Rio de Janeiro safe.
He’s convinced Brazil’s new gun control law, the surrounding disarmament
campaign, and an aggressive gun buy-back program are excellent tools for
gaining new momentum and broad-based support for his uphill battle.
Buying Your Way Out of Violence
Since it entered into force on July 19, 2004, Brazil’s disarmament law has
been more successful than anyone anticipated and has reignited hope for
peace in the most violent corners of this country. The new gun control law
stipulates that any citizen in possession of a firearm can turn in the
weapon to the Federal Police and receive a direct deposit of cash in his
or her bank account. Participants also receive amnesty if the weapon is
illegally owned--an important clause since 90% of personal firearms in
Brazil are illegal. The nation’s first gun buy-back program was
inaugurated by the Ministry of Justice to implement the gun-control law.
A pistol is worth U.S.$33.00, a rifle or shotgun U.S.$66.00, and an
automatic weapon U.S.$100.00. In a country where the minimum wage is less
than a dollar a day, and a city where unemployment topped 10% last June,
turning in a firearm in exchange for more than you might earn in a month
is an attractive option. But no one thought it would see such quick
success.
Within six weeks after its inauguration, journalists, academics, and
others were predicting the disarmament campaign would double the
government’s original estimate of 150,000 to 180,000 purchased firearms.
Fernando Segóvia, Commissioner of the National Arms Service of the Federal
Police, expects the original number to more than triple. All over Brazil,
the Federal Police are taking in firearms by the dozens. Over 50,000 were
collected in the first month, or an average of 1,821 a day, compared to
the 13,000 seized in all of 2003.
Nearly 95% of the arms that Brazilian criminals use were made in Brazil .
Many were purchased for legal purposes but eventually found their way into
criminal hands through theft or other means. “The idea here is to reduce
the number of guns in society so there are less available to criminals,”
argues Segóvia. “By removing guns from communities, we also cut down on
accidental or wrongful death within families and the inappropriate use of
arms by minors,” he adds.
Simply put, too many people have had easy access to firearms for too long.
And they are cheap. “I can sell a whole stash of used .32 revolvers and
..36 caliber snub nose pistols in a day, for between US$5 and US$25 a
piece,” said one arms dealer here, who preferred to remain unidentified.
“If you throw in a little extra, I’ll hand you the weapon fully loaded and
ready to rock,” he added with a wink.
Brazilian citizens are so exasperated with the daily violence that they
are jumping at the chance to play a personal role in making their lives
more secure. States with high levels of violence, such as São Paulo, Rio
de Janeiro, and Pernambuco, have bought back huge numbers of guns.
Authorities in Paraná, a state bordering Paraguay in the south, recently
held a public gun destruction ceremony where a tractor rolled over a pile
of some 2,500 firearms. Over 20,000 arms have been collected in Paraná
alone. As enthusiasm for the new program increases, some experts say it
could even provide a model for the United States and other great powers,
such as Russia, China, and India, in their own battles to control the
illicit trade and misuse of small arms.
Although disarmament through buy-backs has been a resounding success, the
question remains: Can disarmament significantly reduce violence in
Brazilian cities?
One concern is what happens if law-abiding citizens turn in their guns,
and criminals do not. Another concern stems from the financial limitations
of the program, especially now that demand has surpassed expectations. By
early August, cynics claimed the government would not have enough money to
purchase all the weapons Brazilian citizens wanted out of their
communities. Segóvia predicts the amount needed could be as high as
U.S.$59 million. The initial budget for the gun buy-back program was set
at U.S.$3.3 million. At the end of September, the Ministry of Justice
announced that it had submitted to Congress a bill to request a supplement
of U.S.$6.8 million for the gun buy-back program. The bill has yet to
pass.
Disarmament activist Rangel Antonio Bandera, a principal lobbyist and
activist for disarmament in Rio de Janeiro, argues that without widespread
diffusion of safe and secured collection centers, the momentum of the
disarmament campaign may flat line before having a significantly positive
effect on the federal level. He states that there are over 80 million
illegal firearms circulating in Brazil .
“There are not enough collection centers around the country,” argues
Rangel . “We are working with the Federal Police to allow the use of
churches and community centers as collection centers, but the process is
very slow.” Rangel believes that without widespread disarmament throughout
the country, a significant reduction of violence will be elusive.
There is also concern that the Brazilian military, the only governmental
agency that can legally destroy arms, will not be able to keep up with the
pace of arms collection. As of 8 October, over 100,000 arms have been
turned over to the Federal Police, less than 25% have been delivered for
destruction, and relatively few actually destroyed. Viva Rio, an
anti-violence NGO that houses Rangel’s disarmament program and the first
gun collection center run by civilians, renders collected arms unusable
before turning them over to the Federal Police. “We simply can’t be sure
that arms turned over to the Federal Police will actually be destroyed,”
claims Rangel.
Guns and Urban Violence
The gun buy-back program operates on the premise that there is a strong
cause and effect link between disarmament and a reduction in violence. Yet
the correlation is very hard for social scientists to prove.
“It’s difficult to make [such a] link in developing countries,” claims
International Alert’s Latin American disarmament specialist William
Godnick. “[For example] homicides have gone down in El Salvador after
rising for four or five years after the war; attributing that to
disarmament is a stretch given the percentage of weapons in circulation
actually recovered,” he argues. This suggests that for a disarmament
campaign to significantly reduce firearm-related deaths, a high percentage
of guns, relative to the amount on the street, must be collected. For
Brazil , that means a penetrating, nation-wide campaign that can take a
sizable chunk out of 80 million unregistered weapons in the country.
Itagiba, however, is convinced the current disarmament campaign will
reduce violence in his state and city. “Many guns used by criminals in
this state are made here in Brazil and illegally owned by citizens; the
disarmament campaign helps us do our job by reducing the number of guns in
illegal circulation that are widely available to members of organized
crime here.” He adds, “Unlike other states in Brazil , we in Rio have
passed legislation to reward our military police for firearms they seize
from criminals.” Since then military police in this town have been very
active seizing small arms and light weapons such as bazookas, grenades,
and high-powered rifles. Their pace has notably quickened, but Rio is just
one state in a country nearly the size of the United States .
Like many of the Lula government’s plans for peace and well-being, the
disarmament campaign will most likely encounter financial constraints
before it achieves long-term success in the minds, hearts, and lives of
millions of Brazilians. With a strong gun lobby in the Brazilian Congress,
it will be an uphill battle for Rangel and other leading activists to
convince politicians to loosen the purse strings. The immediate success of
the gun buy-back program could be forgotten a year from now if the program
stalls for lack of funds.
Other countries in the region have virtually no form of gun control.
Members of the Uruguayan Congress have made an attempt to pass a powerful
disarmament bill into law in the wake of Brazil’s success, but have made
little progress. Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay have
other, deeply rooted problems with the drug trade, corruption, and
economic malaise to consider setting aside the necessary funds to
effectively buy back guns circulating in their societies. And it still has
not been proven that gun buy-back programs reduce violent crime.
With thoughtful politics and aggressive fund-raising, Brazil may just
break the mold and prove that nation-wide disarmament can significantly
reduce violent crime. In addition to making the streets of Rio safer, such
long-term success could prove to the world that innovation is not always
imported and that Brazilians do not need Uncle Sam, or anyone else, to
tell them what’s best for their country.
Sam Logan is a journalist in Rio de Janeiro and a frequent contributor to
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