Gun control: Brazilian government confronts dismantling of firearms regulation
Nicole Froio
Sunday 20 August 2023
In late July, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced a new executive order that further tightened legislation around the number of firearms civilians are allowed. It also introduces additional regulations for hunters, target shooters and gun collectors, as well as new rules for the transportation of privately-owned firearms. The reforms follow another executive order, signed in January as one of Lula’s first actions as President, which undid the legislative changes his predecessor made to loosen gun ownership laws.
The new order will substitute the first, which was issued as a provisional measure to urgently halt the increase in gun ownership in Brazil. The country’s legislation in this area had not been modified since 2003, when the Disarmament Statute was passed by Congress in response to an increase in fatal gun violence.
In 2019, the previous administration under Jair Bolsonaro signed three different executive orders that together relaxed firearm ownership, carrying and ammunition regulation. According to Gabriel de Carvalho Borges Toledo Machado, an associate at Mattos Filho in São Paulo, these changes were intended to ease restrictions on carrying loaded or unloaded firearms.
‘Additionally, those executive orders reclassified certain firearms that were previously designated as restricted to military and police forces, allowing their ownership by civilians’, says Rogério Fernando Taffarello, a partner at Mattos Filho. ‘This effectively widened civilian and hunters, target shooters and gun collectors’ access to more potent firearms.’
More:
https://www.ibanet.org/Gun-control-Brazilian-gov-confronts-dismantling-of-firearms-regulation