Enforcing Brazil's Gun Law, eight years later

More centralized data on firearms, less guns in circulation, more guns seized at state level, a 90% drop in gun sales to civilians, a drastic drop in gun licenses issued to civilians, and more importantly, over five thousand lives saved in less than three years. These were some of the major advances that resulted from Brazil’s gun control law or the Disarmament Statute, as it is known, enacted in December of 2003.

The Sou da Paz Institute study “Implementação do Estatuto do Desarmamento – do papel para a prática”, analyses successes and shortcomings of the enforcing the 8 year old law, a partnership with the Rede Desarma Brasil, financed by the Ford Foundation. The goal of the study was to map how the Statute’s articles are being enforced across Brazil. “There was significant progress, but we should not forget that 37 thousand people still die in Brazil due to firearms”, said Denis Mizne, executive director of the Sou da Paz Institute.

Study results were released at Brazil’s Federal Congress on April 29th, in the presence of members of the Desarma Brazil network from various Brazilian states, Sou da Paz Institute members from São Paulo, as well as Representatives José Genoíno, Maria Maggessi, Luis Couto and Fernando Morrone, and members of the Ministry of Justice, the Federal Police force and the Brazilian Army.

According to data from Brazil’s Central Health System (SUS, Sistema Único de Saúde) approximately 40 thousand Brazilians lost their lives to gun related deaths in 2003. After the enactment of Brazil’s Gun control statute, gun related homicides began to drop and currently show a declining curve. The homicide rate in Brazil in 2003 was of 28.9 per thousand inhabitants. In 2007, the latest data available from the SUS – the rate had fallen to 25.2 per 100 thousand inhabitants, amounting to an 8% drop.

Heather Sutton, Sou da Paz Institute gun control coordinator agrees that there has unquestionably been progress, but that the situation is still very serious. “Brazil is the 6th largest firearms producer in the world. No other nation has more firearms victims than Brazil. Our nation has 2.8% of the global population, but it is responsible for 13% of the world’s deaths due to armed violence,” said Heather.

Study says law must be more thoroughly enforced

The study carried out interviews over the past two years employing questionnaires on the enforcement of the gun control law in 10 Brazilian states. State and federal agencies in charge of gun control took part in the study, among them the Federal Police Force, the Brazilian army, the Ministry of Justice, the Civil and Military Police forces, the Civil Metropolitan Guard and public security offices. The study covered the states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul, Espírito Santo, Ceará, Pernambuco, Pará and the Federal District.

According to Denis Mizne, (photo) the survey allowed authors to map gun control measures across the nation. “We chose ten states that were representative of the federation, so that we could pinpoint discrepancies in how the law is being enforced across the nation.

The study reached the conclusion that despite significant progress eight years after the gun control law was enacted, its enforcement still runs into difficulties and many measures have yet to see the light of day.

Disjointed databases

The most important of these measures makes it difficult to have a clear picture of how many guns are in circulation in the country. Various firearms databases in the country have not been integrated, respectively: the Federal Police firearms database, known as the Sinarm, the Brazilian Army’s Sigma, as well as the fact the Federal Police force has no access to the other Army systems, the Cicof, the firearms manufacture control system, and Cicovem, that regulates firearms stocks.

“The firearms databases had to be integrated within a year of the enactment of the gun control law, but the deadline was not met. Conversations with police forces across the country show that investigations are hindered by the bureaucracy necessary to access gun data at the Sigma, which is not conducive with crime fighting,” said Mizne.

According to Federal Police Captain Marcus Vinícius Dantas (photo, below) a new system is being developed that will be linked to the Sigma, allowing for the enforcement of the law. “The Sinarm is an old system, it was created in the 1980s, and now it will be overhauled and become much more user friendly,” said Dantas, who is in charge of the Sinarm/Darm.

Stolen weapons, diverting to criminal hands

Another important issue that came to light in the survey was the share of gun collectors, hunters and sportsmen in the overall number of guns owned by civilians. According to survey results, the group owns approximately 155 thousand firearms. Their share of legally owned guns is considered significant if contrasted to the number of weapons owned by the military police force numbering 376 thousand firearms, or little more than twice the number of guns owned by collectors.

According to information issued by the Army, some collectors have licenses to own machine guns. “These weapons are desired by criminal groups, and it seems to us that these weapons are not controlled as closely as one would like,” said Mizne.

Mizne suggests that guns in the hands of collectors or sportsmen have their firing mechanisms disabled. “It will help protect the safety of the collectors themselves,” said Mizne. Representative and former Civil Police captain, Rio de Janeiro’s Marina Maggessi agrees and suggests further that “we ought to disable guns owned by collectors and arm the police with non-lethal weapons. It will be good for victims, for criminals, and for the police officers themselves who will not see their careers cut short for having killed someone in the line of duty” said Maggessi.

Costly ballistic database

Another measure established in the Statute and still on paper is the creation of a ballistic data base that would trace bullets back the guns that fired them. The database would be invaluable for criminal investigations, since any cartridges found at a crime scene would enable the identification of the weapons that fired them.

Mr Dantas believes however that such a system would be very expensive and would not generate significant legal results. “This method is unsatisfactory because it is hard to prosecute someone based on this type of identification. We risk spending a lot of resources and not having an efficient control system,” said Dantas.

Control extends to firearms in possession of private security companies

Another serious problem pointed out by the survey has to do with controlling the weapons owned by private security companies. There are today 1.8 million private security guards registered at the Federal Police force, of these 352 thousand were issued gun licenses. The 3,181 private security companies registered in Brazil have 223 thousand firearms in their power.

According to the Sou da Paz Institute survey data, there are 69 thousand weapons owned by private companies in the state of São Paulo, and they reported that 21 thousand weapons were stolen, in other words, 20% of these weapons went into illegal ownership. The Parliamentary Hearing Commission into gun trafficking at the federal congress, active in 2005 and 2006, showed that 17% of the weapons seized from criminals and analyzed by the Rio de Janeiro Civil Police Force were first owned by a private security company.

The Federal Police force’s General coordinator of Private Security Control, Police Captain Adelar Anderli (photo) states that “private security works in a complement and not to replace public security, nor should it work in areas uncovered by public security due to inefficient police.” Andreli says that a new system has been developed to manage the private security sector’s information.

Federal Police should be in charge of gun control

“The Gesp (Electronic Management of Private Security) is the only registration possible for private security companies. It is integrated to the Sinarm. Every gun we give to private enterprise is registered directly at the Sinarm, there is no way private security companies can hide information on their guns,” said Andreli.

Among the recommendations made after the survey, the Sou da Paz Institute stresses that the Federal Police force should prevail in managing gun control. “The equal distribution of power between the Federal Police force and the Army is bad for gun control. Small arms in Brazil are a public security, not a national security issue,” said Denis Mizne.

Other recommendations include: An integrated gun management cabinet to foster communications among various public agencies that manage gun control at the municipal, state and federal level; a measure to allow civil and military police officers to perform data entry directly into the Sinarm system; greater control of private security companies; and clear rules on firearms caches in all control agencies.

A parliamentary commission was created to deliver survey results to the ministries of Justice and Defense, and to work with the National Congress to stop the approval of bills that could endanger the Statute. “We want to show that the law works if it is correctly enforced. We must make sure that the Statute does not have the same end that afflicted so many laws that never came out of the law books into real life,” said Denis Mizne.

Translated by Lis Horta Moriconi

Read Further:

Abstract of the survey (In Portuguese) PDF