Wearing a skull and the name “Bolsonaro” on his T-shirt, this former policeman repeats one of the maxims of the pro-arms president: “An armed people will never be enslaved”.
By dint of decrees that have facilitated access to firearms, the far-right president has, since his election in 2019, increased the number of hunters, sport shooters and collectors (CAC) from 117,000 to more than 673,000. , more than the number of police officers (406,384).
This explosion in the quantity of weapons in circulation raises fears before the presidential election on October 2, to such an extent that the Supreme Court has temporarily suspended several of the new purchasing possibilities.
– “Cursed legacy” –
“Today, a civilian can buy weapons more powerful than those of the police themselves,” says Bruno Langeani, author of the book “Firearms in Brazil: the trigger for violence”.
“And for the CACs, the privileges are even greater: in some cases, they can buy 60 weapons per person, 30 of which can be assault rifles,” he explains.
The NGO Brazilian Public Security Forum estimates that there are around 4.4 million weapons in circulation in the country of 214 million people. This includes those possessed by CACs, individual self-defense weapons, those of civil servants or for private use by members of the security forces.
A third of them (1.5 million) have valid permits that have expired.
“We are generating a stock that will be a cursed legacy for future generations,” predicts Langeani.
– “Good citizen” –
But for Mr. Gomes Freitas, owning a firearm is a matter of individual freedom and national sovereignty. “It is not a question of arming everyone, but of allowing the good citizen to be trained and to have access to a firearm”.
Echoing the insinuations of Mr. Bolsonaro on supposed opposition forces infiltrated in the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) which could rig the presidential election in October, Elitusalem Gomes Freitas says he is ready: “I cannot allow a half -dozen people (the judges of the TSE, editor’s note) to choose the destiny of the Nation, contrary to what the people voted for. Weapons must also guarantee this freedom, this defense of national sovereignty against the internal enemy”.
According to Mr. Langeani, with this conspiratorial discourse “even a radicalized minority can cause very great damage”, as was the case during the storming of the Capitol in Washington in January 2021.
– “We have everything” –
Some 1,000 shooting clubs have been set up in Brazil since 2019, according to army data cited by the UOL portal.
“When the government facilitated access to weapons, I said to myself that we had to follow the movement,” Marcelo Costa, a former federal police officer and president of the Mil Armas club, inaugurated four years ago, told AFP. years, where Elitusalem Gomes Freitas trains.
He manages the club with his two children and his wife, a psychologist approved by the authorities to assess new members who benefit from legal advice on how to obtain their license.
They can either use the club’s weapons or buy their own directly from the club. “It’s like a shopping mall, we have everything,” proudly says Marcelo Costa, who offers “up to 12 free installments” for those who can’t pay cash for models “between 5,000 ($950) and 20,000 reais (3,800)”.
Bruno Langeani, also a member of the NGO specialized in security Instituto Sou da Paz, warns against the “risk” that all these weapons end up in the wrong hands. Such was the case recently when an imprisoned collector in Rio handed over 60 legally acquired weapons to the powerful drug gang Comando Vermelho.
