The flexibility promoted by former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) in access to weapons in Brazil changed the profile of weapons seized by the police in the Southeast and favored the modernization of the arsenal of criminals, according to a study carried out by the Sou da Paz Institute.
Entitled “Arsenal of Crime: Analyzing the Profile of Seized Firearms in the Southeast,” the investigation covered 255,900 seizures made by state and federal police from 2018 to 2023. The data was obtained through the Access to Information Act (ATIA).
The number of weapons seized has seen a steady decline since the approval of the Disarmament Statute, the study indicates. A reversal occurred in 2023, when the region recorded 37,994 such incidents compared to 36,370 the previous year.
The former president is today imprisoned at the PF superintendence in Brasilia, convicted in the coup process.
Making access to weapons more flexible in Brazil was a campaign promise of Bolsonaro, who has historically criticized the Disarmament Statute and claimed the measure allowed families to defend themselves.
The most significant change concerns 9mm pistols, the purchase of which was made easier by a rule published by Bolsonaro in May 2019.
Among all pistol seizures in the Southeast region, 9mm models accounted for 28.5% of incidents in 2018, a year before flexibility, a percentage that jumped to 50.5% in 2023. Their use was until then reserved for the police and the armed forces. President Lula (PT) repealed his predecessor’s rules when he took over the leadership of Planalto. At the time, the PT member called these measures “criminal decrees aimed at expanding access to weapons and ammunition, which have caused so much insecurity and so much harm to Brazilian families.”
Growth is reshaping the characteristics of the clandestine arsenal, research says. Handgun seizures increased from 42.2% in 2018 to 37.6% in 2023, while pistol seizures increased from 25.1% to 35.9% during the same period.
In São Paulo, the pattern repeats itself. Such incidents involving pistols decreased from 25.6% to 33.4% in the first and last year, respectively, while seizures of revolvers decreased from 47.4% to 43.5%.
The share of 9mm weapons in the total number of pistols seized in the state increased from 8.4% to 37.2% during the analyzed period. There were 273 seizures in the first year of the series and 1,305 in the last.
The investigation also highlights that the weapons seized are more recent. In 2018, there were 170 seizures of models manufactured up to two years before the relevant event, a number that in 2023 reached 843 in São Paulo alone.
For the institute, this increase “provides a strong indication that weapons recently acquired on the legal market are rapidly migrating to the criminal world.”
Rifles are also included in this count: there were 4,444 seizures in the Southeast, including 910 in São Paulo. The state is seeing an increase: guns accounted for 0.9% of seizures in 2018 and in 2023, they were 1.5%.
The number of homemade weapons in general decreased during the period analyzed.
The study indicates that they represent a significant part of the devices with greater firepower, as was the case in Santa Bárbara d’Oeste, where a clandestine factory was closed by the PF in an operation that led to the denunciation of 11 people this year. Investigations indicate that factions use this type of factory to arm themselves.
One of Bolsonaro’s decrees authorized CACs (Hunters, Sport Shooters and Collectors) to purchase up to 5,000 cartridges per year for weapons with authorized use and 1,000 for those with restricted use, such as rifles or rifles for example. The text was also revoked.
“These were absurd amounts, beyond all reasonableness, that made the “orange” projects possible,” explains Bruno Langeani, principal consultant of Sou da Paz and coordinator of research on the Southeast.
Last year, a report from the TCU (Federal Court of Auditors) showed that 2,579 people killed were registered as CAC. At the time, according to the agency’s report, 9,387 people with arrest warrants were actively registered as being in possession of weapons. Another 19,479 people were subject to open criminal proceedings.
For Langeani, the investigation “is an x-ray of the criminal market” and also reveals that illegal weapons are more present in Brazilian homes and are used both by organizations and by ordinary citizens to commit property crimes.
In São Paulo, 31.8% of weapons were seized in residential environments, although incidents on public roads are the most frequent.
The investigation also indicates that “the road network is a major point of seizures, suggesting that a significant portion was in transit, including to Rio de Janeiro or northeastern states.”
The capital of São Paulo tops the ten São Paulo cities with the most seizures in absolute figures, with 14,842 weapons seized from 2018 to 2023, but does not enter the ranking if we consider the proportional indices, ahead of Guaratinguetá.
With 121,000 residents and 380 guns seized during that period, the municipality recorded 312.2 guns captured per 100,000 residents, the highest rate in the state, according to the study.
The Prime Minister concentrates 72% of the 68,204 seizures in São Paulo, a percentage much higher than the 14.9% recorded by the civil police, a difference which shows the weaknesses of the security policy, says Langeani.
“The State does not have a police station specialized in the fight against arms trafficking, nor specific inspection work against vulnerable groups.”
The former president claimed to defend freedom
When he signed the first decrees easing gun rules shortly after taking office, Bolsonaro said the measure gave people back the will to decide. “For a long time, it was up to the State to determine who had or did not have the right to defend themselves, their family and their property,” he declared at the time.
He later said that arming the population could prevent coups. “Our life has value, but there is something much more precious than our life, and that is our freedom. Besides the Armed Forces, I defend the individual arming of our people, so that the temptation does not enter the minds of leaders to assume absolute power,” he said.
During the 2022 campaign, he in turn reaffirmed his statements and declared that weapons guarantee the security of families and national sovereignty. This instrument, he declared, is “the guarantee that our democracy will be preserved”.
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