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How Jair Bolsonaro is pushing Brazilians to arm themselves

 

Jair Bolsonaro dreams of a Brazilian society where everyone has a weapon. The postures of the Head of State, the legislation adopted since his election and the sharp increase in arms sales attest to this, says The world in a recent report.

The newspaper underlines in particular that in two years of mandate the president of the country passed about thirty legislative texts related to the sale and the possession of firearms, allowing, for example, to any Brazilian individual to have them. up to four copies, against two previously. The range of calibers available for purchase has also been extended.

Bolsonaro only amplified an underlying trend.

“With the pandemic, people are afraid. They feel threatened, insecure. So they buy weapons, ”also analyzes the CEO of Taurus, a local company leader in the sector, in Brazil as in the rest of Latin America. The figures confirm the trend: the number of people who obtained the right to own a firearm in 2020 stood at 168,000, twice as many as the previous year, and three times as many as in 2018. .

A fundamental trend

However, Jair Bolsonaro does not seem to have initiated the movement, explains to the French daily Ivan Marques, a lawyer specializing in the arms market who is also a member of the Brazilian Public Security Forum (FBSP). “To tell the truth, Bolsonaro only amplified a basic trend, which began long before him,” he explains. One piece of data attests: between 2009 and 2019, the number of new weapons that Brazilians acquired each year exploded, to the tune of 580%.

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