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The Parliamentary Front for a Brazil without Firearms officially launches its campaign, today, in Campinas, in the interior of São Paulo state, in favor of prohibiting firearms sales in the country.
The secretary-general of the Front, Federal Deputy Raul Jungmann, said that the first major event organized by the Deputies and Senators will be a show and rally, gathering actors, intellectuals, and politicians who support the disarmament proposal, on August 11 in Rio de Janeiro.
They are all in favor of a "yes" vote in the October 23 referendum, when voters will be asked to respond to the question: "Should firearm and ammunition sales be prohibited in Brazil?"
The members of the Parliamentary Front want to explain to the Brazilian people that firearms sales constitute one of the elements that contribute directly to the growth of violence in the country.
"We shall extend the debate beyond the question of arms sales. In order to understand why firearm and ammunition sales should be prohibited, the discussion must include the questions of the police forces, the judicial system, and the prison system," Jungmann pointed out.
The Deputy recalled that Brazil holds the world record in homicides resulting from firearm use and has 18 million firearms scattered throughout the country. Half of these weapons are illegal or irregular.
"To emerge from this situation in which we are entrapped, we must take a stand the way we did in the past in the Direct Elections Now movement. This can only be done through a campaign of civic education, and the referendum offers precisely this chance," Jungmann affirmed.
The secretary of the Parliamentary Front announced that committees will be set up all over the country to defend the end of firearm sales.
The "Brazil without Firearms" group also plans to produce educational booklets and establish a toll-free 0800 number to clarify doubts people may have about the referendum and the campaign.
Jungmann confessed, however, that the resources available for the pro-disarmament campaign will be limited.
"We shall be engaged in a bare bones campaign. We plan to hold shows to raise funds at rallies and appeal to the public for donations. Even with little money, we will be able to use the radio and television to present our proposals," he said.
The Deputy was unable to estimate the amount necessary to cover the costs of the campaign.
The TSE (Federal Elections Board) figures it will spend US$ 88 million (210 million reais) on the referendum, including expenses for voter reregistration in various Brazilian states.
"Just on gunshot wound victims, the National Health System spends R$ 180 million per year, which is practically all we shall spend on the referendum," Jungmann affirmed.
The Parliamentary Front for a Brazil without Firearms is presided by Senator Renan Calheiros (PMDB-Alagoas) and composed of the following lawmakers: Luiz Otávio (PMDB-Pará), Gerson Camata (PMDB-Espírito Santo), César Borges (PFL-Bahia), Demóstenes Torres (PFL-Goiás), Tasso Jereissati (PSDB-Ceará), Arthur Virgílio (PSDB-Amazonas), Aloizio Mercadante (PT-São Paulo), Valmir Amaral (PP-Distrito Federal), Patrícia Saboya (unaffiliated-Ceará), Marcelo Crivella (PL-Rio de Janeiro), Raul Jungmann (PPS-Pernambuco), Luiz Eduardo Greenhalgh (PT-São Paulo), João Paulo Cunha (PT-São Paulo), Maria Lúcia Cardoso (PMDB-Minas Gerais), Alberto Goldman (PSDB-São Paulo), Jorge Gomes (PSB-Pernambuco), ACM Neto (PFL-Bahia), Fernando Gabeira (PV-Rio de Janeiro), João Fontes (PDT-Sergipe), Luiz Antônio de Medeiros (PL-São Paulo), and Renildo Calheiros (PCdoB-Pernambuco).
Agência Brasil
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It seems clear that many individuals within the political and intellectual elite of Brazil have done very little research on gun control and its effects. As usual, it is precisely such people who appear to have the strongest and most extreme opinions and "solutions".
Had they taken the trouble to study well-constructed criminological studies written by competent academics, they would have found- probably to their surprise- that the relationship between the availability of legal guns and crime is actually inverse. In other words, violent crime does not fall but actually increases as the number of legal guns is reduced.
My recent review of gun control and homicides ("How Governments cause crime")confirms this and allows the prediction that -contrary to the naive and optimistic thinking of those supporting the gun-free referendum- the outcome for ordinary Brazilians will be a rapid and very significant worsening in murders and other violent crimes.
If the experience of other countries with gun prohibition is any guide, Brazil can expect at least a DOUBLING of its murder rate in much less than a decade.
Given this well-documented if poorly known fact it is surely important to future-proof the Brazilian referedum and ask each of its high profile proponents whether they accept personal liability in law to the families of victims should murders rates increase significantly as predicted
A clear statement as to what compensation they would be prepared to pay should their brave new world turn out to be far worse than our present one should be a pre-requisite of holding the referendum.
It is surely high time the political and social elites of Brazil were shown that the long-suffering Brazilian taxpayer is no longer prepared to pay the social and financial costs of such naive and disproven social engineering
Yours sincerely
Dr Lech Beltowski
Auckland
New Zealand
PS;
Dear editor;
Please e-mail me at
lechb@adhb.govt.nz
for a copy of
"How Governments cause crime".