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rfmcdonaldThe Economist has an article examining the consequences of gun control in Brazil. Perhaps surprisingly, they're largely positive, especially for the poor majority.
I've never quite understood why the Second Amendment of the US Constitution has been read the way it has been, not only as a sacrosanct law guarding the rights of people to keep guns regardless of circumstances (instead of, say, an amendment passed by a government afraid of foreign invasion as a national security measure), but as a sacrosanct law in an of itself. Why is the US Constitution such a sacred document? Yes, you might qustion me fairly, what about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Suffice it to say that I'm not so ethnocentric as to think that good government and the rule of law are unique to Canada. Constitutions are paper now, but they were originally written on manuscripts, and we all know about palimpests.
What's up?
Tulio Kahn, head of planning for São Paulo's public-security ministry, unfurls a list of possible explanations for the fall in the state's murder rate, from the growth of protestant churches, which preach against drink and violence, to the near tripling in the prison population since the mid 1990s. Crime mapping began in 1999. Several municipalities, including Diadema, passed “dry laws” shutting down bars early to reduce drunken mayhem.
But the main factor, Mr Kahn thinks, is disarmament. The federal government made illegal possession a felony in 1997. In São Paulo, seizures of guns rose from 30,000 to 40,000 a year. The state government cut the number of gun licences it granted from 70,000 a year to 2,000. The effect was not to disarm criminals but to take guns away from ordinary people who kill on impulse, the commonest sort of murder. Mr Kahn notes that 80% of victims die within a kilometre of their homes, which suggests they knew their killers.
Diadema extended disarmament to toy weapons, whose sale is banned within its city limits. Perhaps more important, it started a municipal police force to patrol neighbourhoods, leaving the two state-run forces to chase criminals and conduct investigations. Bar-closing laws are enforced daily by inspectors who learn which establishments they will be visiting only minutes before heading out. Truant teenagers are herded back into school and offered counselling and training. “Violence has many causes” and demands a mix of prevention, repression and social policy, says Regina Miki, Diadema's “secretary of social defence”. A second security plan calls for mediating neighbour disputes and improving school security.
I've never quite understood why the Second Amendment of the US Constitution has been read the way it has been, not only as a sacrosanct law guarding the rights of people to keep guns regardless of circumstances (instead of, say, an amendment passed by a government afraid of foreign invasion as a national security measure), but as a sacrosanct law in an of itself. Why is the US Constitution such a sacred document? Yes, you might qustion me fairly, what about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Suffice it to say that I'm not so ethnocentric as to think that good government and the rule of law are unique to Canada. Constitutions are paper now, but they were originally written on manuscripts, and we all know about palimpests.
What's up?
