The loosening of Brazilian gun laws could not have come at a better time for Anna Vieira.
The same day that the 37-year-old holistic therapist signed up for shooting lessons, President Jair Bolsonaro delivered on a key campaign promise from last year’s election by broadening access to firearms for “good” law-abiding people.
Previously, Ms Vieira would have been subject to a rigorous assessment to prove that she was under threat and had an “effective need” to own a firearm.
Now, Brazilians with a clean criminal record can buy a gun if they pass a psychological test, have a proven ability to use firearms and live somewhere with a murder rate higher than 10 killings per 100,000 habitants — in effect every Brazilian state.
“Citizens should learn to handle guns,” said Ms Vieira, a bullet casing in her hand. “Knowing I can protect myself from those who cannot be really called ‘citizens’, but who are armed to their teeth, gives me a sense of security.”
Many in Brazil are aghast at a liberalisation they fear could boost an already high murder rate. But at Ms Vieira’s shooting club in central Rio de Janeiro, where visitors are greeted with a sign saying “we don’t call 911, we use a Colt 9mm”, members celebrated the move by a president who ran on a far-right, law-and-order platform.
“Thanks to God and Bolsonaro, some restrictions are gone,” João Bercle, a shooting instructor, told students while drawing a blue marker line through the words “disarmament statute” on his blackboard.
The loosening of restrictions in the 2003 law was necessary “so that the good citizen has peace at home”, the president said. The liberalisation follows a sharp deterioration in public security. Rising crime rates have been attributed to recession-induced budget crises in regional government. At the same time, political paralysis wrought by a string of corruption scandals created a vacuum that Brazil’s criminal lords moved to fill.
While almost 50,000 people were killed in Brazil in 2006, this figure had risen to 64,000 in 2017. The vast majority were shot.
The total number of people killed over the 10-year period was well over half a million, according to the Institute for Applied Economic Research. This is more than during the Syrian civil war, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Mr Bercle, a tattooed former military man, said high crime levels were behind the rise in the number of clients at his shooting club from 125 four years ago to 1,300 now. “If you want peace, prepare yourself for war, goes the old motto. And, it’s quite true. Someone who wants to have peace of mind needs to be ready for the fight, ” he said. Mr Bercle recalled how one afternoon two years ago, he drew his gun to take on a group of armed thugs who blocked the road. He hit one twice in the stomach.
Still, apart from staunch Bolsonaro supporters such as Mr Bercle, the new law does not enjoy widespread support. A January survey by the pollster Datafolha found that six out of 10 Brazilians were against liberalising gun laws.
“More arms mean more deaths,” said Renato Sérgio de Lima, director of the Brazilian Forum on Public Security, a non-profit group.
His colleague Daniel Cerqueira said tighter gun controls had contributed to a 12.6 per cent decline in homicides between 2003 and 2013 in Brazil. “Murders will rise and will be the government’s responsibility,” he said.
In a country already awash with guns, “encouraging more civilians to arm themselves will not improve public safety. Expanding access and availability of firearms is tantamount to throwing gas on a raging fire,” said Ilona Szabó, a Rio-based security expert.
She added: “If the government is serious about public security and fighting organised crime it would do well to enforce existing gun laws rather than dismantling them.”
But advocates of relaxed gun controls argue that gun ownership acts as a deterrent against crime. They say illegal gun ownership is widespread: in 2017 almost 120,000 guns were seized by authorities, as heavily armed drug gangs easily obtained weapons either at home or smuggled across porous South American borders.
Eduardo Bolsonaro, the president’s son and also a congressman and admirer of US gun laws, has said that he is not concerned about giving ordinary Brazilians “access to firearms, since people who want to murder, steal and commit gun crimes already have access to them”.
Vocal pro-gun activists, such as Bene Barbosa, want ordinary Brazilians to carry guns freely outside their house and property. “It [Mr Bolsonaro’s change] was too timid,” said Mr Barbosa, calling the measure “a bucket of cold water”.
He might yet get his wish for further liberalisation. Lawmakers in the Brazilian Congress are preparing a bill to expand access and availability of firearms, including the carrying of weapons.
Fiery congresswoman-elect Joice Hasselmann, who belongs to Mr Bolsonaro’s conservative Social Liberal party, is one of those who wants to arm citizens. In a video she posted this week on social media, she can be seen putting on lipstick before she takes an assault rifle from the trunk of her white Porsche, and then walks decisively to a shooting range in her black stilettos. “Soon women in my country will walk on their heels and with their guns as I do,” she said.
Back at the shooting club, Ms Vieira voiced enthusiasm about her gun lessons. “I love these things,” she said.
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