4,158 illegal firearms were destroyed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on the 6th July, the eve of a UN meeting in New York to discuss progress on stopping gun proliferation. The weapons, which had been used illegally in Rio and confiscated by police, were crushed under a steamroller and three hundred burned in a pyre. Such public gun destruction events highlight the need for civil society and government cooperation to reduce gun violence, as described in the 2001 UN Program of Action. More