Brazil: Private Gun Ownership up, Murder rate Down

Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro

One of Brazilian President Jair  Bolsonaro's campaign promises was to reform the extremely burdensome restrictions of the Brazilian legal code on the ownership and use of firearms. Ammoland related the drop in homicides as of early 2020, when the rate had dropped under 20 per 100,000 population. According to the Wilson Center, Progressive thinktank, legal private ownership of firearms grew from about 1.3 million in 2018 to just short of 3 million in 2022.

"Experts" claim the increase in armed citizens has nothing to do with the drop in the homicide rate. From the Wilson Center:

At first glance, this seems to lend credence to far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro’s view on fighting crime. He advocated the indiscriminate use of firearms by the general population as a policy to curb violence. Criminals would “think twice” before robbing an “armed, law-abiding citizen,” he argued. Gun registrations increased by nearly 80 percent between 2019 and 2022, the duration of Mr. Bolsonaro’s term.

However, experts deny that the drop in homicides last year is linked to Mr. Bolsonaro’s pro-gun, tough-on-crime discourse.

The Wilson Center's "80%" increase is difficult to decipher. In the chart they present, the total number of legal, privately owned guns increases about 127%, from 1.3 million to about 2.95 million. These numbers include private firearms owned by service members. If you exclude the firearms owned by service members, the numbers increase from about .65 million to 2.25 million, a 246% increase.  The 80% increase only makes sense if you start with the permits in the first year of Bolsonaro's term, after he had already issued his decree to start the rise in numbers.

Legal private ownership of firearms increased substantially during Bolsonaro's four year term, and homicide rates plummeted. The homicide rate dropped from nearly 31 per 100,000 in 2017 to 19 in 2022. Homicide rates in Brazil Have dropped to the lowest level since 1994.  From AP in Chron.com:

About 47,500 people were slain in Latin America's largest nation in 2022, said a report Thursday by the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety, an independent group that tracks crimes. Its statistics are widely used as a benchmark because there are no official statistics on a national level.

While the number of killings in 2022 was down 2.4% from the previous year, it remained roughly even with levels recorded since 2019. The last time Brazil had less violent deaths was in 2011, with 47,215 killings.

The reporting ignores the increase in the Brazilian population. Citing only raw numbers, for such a comparitson is lying with statistics. The rates of homicide are what should be compared, not the raw numbers. In 2011, using the numbers provided by AP, the rate was 23.8 per 100,000, considerably higher than the 22 as calculated from the AP figures for 2022.

Another source shows 40,800 murders registered, for a homicide rate of 19 per 100,000

Brazil experienced a small 1% drop in homicides in 2022, with 40,800 murders registered, according to the National Homicide Index created by media group Globo.

In 2021, the country registered 41,069 murders according to the same index.

From the various sources, the homicide rate fell from 1 - 2.4 % from 2021. As we see a homicide rate of 19 per 100k in 2022, we would have a rate of about 19.2 to 19.5 in 2021. The rates for 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 were, according to  the same macroterends article as above: 30.69, 26.72, 20.88, 22.45. Not only did the homicide rate drop, it stayed at about 70% of the level it had been at the high. The rate of homicide in Brazil had not been that low since 1994. The first effective restrictive firearms regulation was put into effect in 1997.

The "experts" predicted the homicide rate would rise precipitously with an increase in firearms ownership.

From Ammoland, on May 13, 2019, "experts" were predicting  a 2% increase in the murder rate for each 1% increase in the number of firearms in circulation. The number of firearms in circulation is difficult to measure and in dispute. The number of legal firearms in circulation more than doubled. The murder rate fell precipitously, as did the total number of homicides. As previously written, legal firearms ownership rates, illegal firearms ownership rates, and the regulation of firearms have no correlation with homicide rates.

How could the "experts" be so wrong? Because they start with the assumption more guns = more homicides. The assumption is false, as has been demonstrated in numerous countries, now including Brazil.

In science, an hypothesis is established, then a prediction is made about what an experiment will show. The experiment is conducted. If the results of the experiment agree with the predicted results, the hypothesis stands until more experiments show otherwise. The problem with real-world experiments, such as conducted during the four year term of President Bolsonaro, is there are numerous, uncontrolled variables. The basic numbers stand as shown. Gun laws restrictions were reformed, allowing more legal private ownership and carry of firearms. The murder rate dropped precipitously.

The newly elected, far-left President Lula (in a highly disputed election) is working hard to eliminate the Bolsonaro gun reforms.  From apnews.com:

Estimates of the number of guns in civilian hands more than tripled to 2.9 million in a country of 214 million people, according to the Instituto Sou da Paz, a non-profit that monitors public security.

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 “It’s one thing for the regular citizen to have a gun at home for his protection, as a guarantee, because some people think this is safety. Let them have it. But we cannot allow gun arsenals to be in the people’s hands,” Lula said Friday during a signing ceremony.

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 “We will keep on fighting for a disarmed country. Who should be well equipped with guns is the Brazilian police and the federal armed
forces,” Lula said.

When your basic assumption is the people should be disarmed, no amount of statistical evidence will persuade you to allow them to be armed.

Brazil has very few firearms compared to the United States. At the highest, its homicide rate was about five to six times that of the United States. Under Bolsonaru, the Brazilian homicide rate dropped. Under President Biden, the USA homicide rate increased. The Brazilian rate, now at 19 per 100,000 is only about 3 times the homicide rate in the United States.  The USA has about 450 million privately owned firearms. Brazil has about 2.9 million (according to the above article). The USA rate of firearms per person is 1.35, that of Brazil is about .0135, or only 1 percent of that of the USA.

With only 1/100 of the rate of firearms ownership in the USA, Brazilians murder about 3-6 times as many people per 100,000 population. This shows the number of firearms owned is virtually meaningless in accounting for the rate of homicide in a country.

The drop in the homicide rate in Brazil shows people who are likely to commit homicide can read papers and see the news. When they know more people are likely to be armed, they can alter their behavior.

©2023 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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