Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – Brazilians were soundly rejecting a proposal to ban guns in a referendum Sunday, according to partial official results, striking down the bid to stem one of the world’s highest murder rates following a campaign that drew parallels to the U.S. gun control debate.
Brazil has 100 million fewer citizens than the United States but a staggering 25 percent more gun deaths, at nearly 40,000 a year. While both sides agreed that violence is excessive, opponents of the gun ban gained support by playing on Brazilians’ fears that the police can’t protect them.
“I don’t like people walking around armed on the street. But since all the bandits have guns, you need to have a gun at home,” said taxi driver Mohammed Osei, who voted against the ban.
With votes from most of the polls counted, 64 percent opposed the ban and 36 percent supported it, election officials said. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had favored the ban.
If the referendum passed, the sale of firearms and ammunition would have been prohibited except for police, the military, some security guards, gun collectors and sports shooters. It would complement a 2003 disarmament law that sharply restricts who can legally purchase firearms and carry guns in the street.
That law, coupled with a government- sponsored gun buyback program, has reduced deaths from firearms by about 8 percent this year, the Health Ministry said.
Analysts said that the pro-gun lobby benefited from equal time on television in the final weeks of the campaign and that they cannily cashed in on Brazilian skepticism of the police.
“They ask the question: ‘Do you feel protected, and do you think the government is protecting you?’ and the answer is a violent no,” said political scientist David Fleischer of the University of Brasilia.
