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Former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva proposed on Tuesday to “resume” the disarmament of the population if he wins the October elections, contrary to the self-defense policy promoted by President Jair Bolsonaro.
The leader of the Workers’ Party stressed that, if he returned to the presidency, he would “resume” the Statute of Disarmament.
The Statute, approved in 2003, during the first year of his mandate (2003-2010), was endorsed in a popular referendum in 2005, which rejected the ban on the sale of weapons in the country but restricted they’re carrying while encouraging the disarmament of the civilian population.
However, the statute has been loosened in recent years by Bolsonaro, who came to power in 2018 with the freedom to bear arms as one of his central campaign pledges.
Under the slogan that an “armed population will not be enslaved,” the president has encouraged gun access by civilians and has promised that, if re-elected, he will make it even easier for them to be carried, thus following the U.S. model.
With the increased flexibility, the number of citizens registering for access to guns soared by 474% between 2018 and 2022, according to data published by the NGO Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública (Brazilian Public Security Forum). This has translated into a 6.5 % reduction in murders in Brazil in 2021 —its lowest level in ten years.
