On 23 October 2005, Brazilians will be able to vote in a radical referendum that is without precedent in the world: to choose if civilians should be allowed to buy guns.
This is a vital moment for Brazilians, who suffer the largest number of gun homicides in the world: 39,000 firearms deaths each year, many of them young people aged between 15 and 24.
Brazilian campaigners are convinced that the approval of this measure through a popular vote will be a major victory for the fight against violence in Brazil.
It is also a vital moment for the rest of the world, which will be watching carefully. If Brazil’s people vote for the prohibition of gun sales, this will reinforce the movement in favor of gun control in other Latin American countries riddled with armed violence, and back the efforts to control private gun ownership at international level.
Brazil has already been taking dramatic steps against the scourge of guns. After a decade of campaigning by Brazilian society, with increasingly strong demands for concrete changes from the government, the Disarmament Statute was passed in December 2003.
This new law banned the carrying of guns, drastically restricted their sale, and included measures to decrease the number of guns already in circulation. It also requires this new referendum to be held: the first referendum on any subject in Brazil, and the first referendum on gun ownership in the world.
A unique opportunity
For IANSA members in Brazil, the referendum is a huge opportunity and the culmination of years of campaigning.
The outcome is difficult to foresee. Opinion polls suggest that 60 to 80% of Brazilians favour a prohibition on gun sales to civilians.
But the powerful lobby of the Brazilian national arms and ammunition industry, with support from the National Rifle Association in the US, is also gearing up, and has announced it will invest US $1 million in the campaign.
Already the Brazilian pro-gun lobby has tried to prevent the referendum taking place, with ten months of political maneuvering. These delaying tactics were only overcome through enormous efforts by Brazilian civic organisations, who held constant rallies and distributed statistics on firearms violence to congressmen. The final vote on the referendum was 258 votes in favour, 48 against, and 5 abstentions.
A YES vote would be a message from the people that they do not want their houses, streets, schools and public spaces awash with guns; that they do not want their young people to risk being in the path of bullets every time they step outside. It would be a message to the world that the majority of people do not believe that having guns in their communities makes them safer.
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