A survey published this Monday (13) by the Sou da Paz ( I am for peace) Institute points out that the number of guns in the hands of civilians soared during the government of Jair Bolsonaro and reached 2,965,439 by the end of 2022.
That number is more than double the figure for 2018 when there were 1,320,582 firearms in civilian hands. Data were collected through the Access to Information Law and analyzed by the Sou da Paz and Igarapé institutes. Personal or private weapons belonging to CACs (hunters, sport shooters, and collectors), common citizens registered for self-defense, subsistence hunters, civil servants (such as police and civil guards) with carry permits and who bought weapons for personal use, and also members of military institutions (military police, military firefighters, etc.) who bought weapons for personal use.
"We are living the result of a four-year policy of facilitating access to weapons. It is a set of norms, decrees, and ordinances from those years that has increased the number of weapons available for citizens and CACs, and also the power of these weapons", says Carolina Ricardo, executive director of the Sou da Paz Institute. "President Bolsonaro has more than once positioned himself in favor of people buying rifles instead of food. Therefore, the result only corroborates what we have witnessed in these last years."
Translated by Cassy Dias