Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, has made gun ownership more flexible since he came to power. Photo: AP
The number of firearms in the Brazilian Amazon has increased by 219% in three years, thanks to the facilities granted by the government of Jair Bolsonaro to transport them, according to a report fueling the controversy, in the midst of the campaign for the presidential elections in October. .
While private firearms registration in Brazil grew by 130.4% between December 2018 and November 2021, in the country’s Amazon region it was 219% over the same period.
The data were released in the third edition of the Bulletin “Descontrole no alvo” (Objective out of control), of the Igarape Institute, this Friday.
For this non-profit organization that operates in the fields of public safety, climate and digitalization, the increase in firearms and deaths in this region of the country has been “more intense” than in the rest of Brazil.
“Although the facilitation of access to weapons and ammunition, following the various changes made to the arms control policy by the federal government since 2019, has increased the number of arsenals in circulation across the country, the rate of growth in the Amazon region it was even higher, “the report states.
Followers of Jair Bolsonaro, in a pro-arms march in Brasilia in July 2021. Photo: EFE
And it is that, according to the report, as of December 2018 there were 57,737 weapons registered in the nine states that are part of the Brazilian Amazon, a number that jumped to 184,181 in 2021.
The researchers point out the significant increase in weapons recorded by hunters, shooters and collectors in the region, which since 2018 was almost 300%, which attracts attention, as the only species whose hunting is allowed in Brazil is the wild boar, “which has little presence in the Amazon region”.
more murders
As for the deaths, the study indicates that while in Brazil gun killings decreased by 15%, from 40,071 to 33,993, between 2012 and 2020, in the Amazon region increased by 4% over the same period, from 5,537 to 5,780.
Since becoming president, Bolsonaro has promoted the need to carry firearms to defend against crime and during his rule the number of records in civilian hands has increased by 241% with the flexibility he has granted to measures to access this. type of artifacts.
An indigenous leader shows images of journalist Dom Phillips and investigator Bruno Pereira, murdered in June in the Amazon. Photo: AFP
In 2019, the year the far-right leader came to power, there were 197,390 firearms registered in private hands. By June of that year the number had skyrocketed to 673,818 registrations, an increase of 241%.
The data correspond to the Army bases and those of the National Weapon System (Sinarm) coordinated by the Federal Police.
For the Igarape Institute, the fact that two different systems, managed by two different bodies, are in charge of arms control “creates great challenges for monitoring the scenario of legal weapons in circulation in Brazil”.
The Amazon region of Brazil is made up of the states of Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima, Tocantins and part of Maranhão and occupies more than half of the country.
Due to the same conditions in the region, which borders other South American countries and consists mainly of dense forests and jungles, the Brazilian Amazon is a historically forgotten area by the state.
Criminal activities are common there, such as illegal timber trade, illegal mining and fishing, and drug trafficking, which have promoted violence in the area.
An example of this was the disappearance and murder last month in a remote area of the Amazon of indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips, whose bodies were found just days after the confession. of a poacher.
Source: EFE
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