How Brazil Exploited Sexual Insecurity to Curb Guns: An Interview with Antonio Bandeira

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-08/how-brazil-exploited-sexual-insecurity-to-curb-guns-an-interview-with-antonio-bandeira.html

***SNIP

Question: What was the political context and background before the gun control campaign?

Answer: Until 2003, like your Congress, our legislature was against any changes in our permissive gun laws, which were an inheritance from the former military regime. (Brazil is the world's fourth largest exporter of small arms and light weapons.) Many Brazilian politicians have their election campaigns financed by the gun lobby, and others retain the machismo mentality that associates guns with masculinity. So changing gun laws was not going to be easy.

Q: What strategy did you adopt?

A: We decided to work with civil society, to build pressure to apply to parliament. First, we had to prove in scientific terms that gun control was necessary to improve public security. Brazil had more deaths caused by firearms than any other nation. In Rio de Janeiro, my team of experts was able to access and evaluate data on 720,000 guns seized by the police.
Our analysis destroyed many myths. For example, most people believed that narcotrafficantes used mainly foreign guns. We proved that 90 percent of illegal guns were Brazilian-made. People believed criminals relied on high-caliber weapons. We proved that 88 percent of guns used in crimes were revolvers or pistols. We also demonstrated that guns are good for attacking, but not for self-defense. (The surprise factor is the attacker's advantage.)

n addition, we found that most gun deaths were committed with legal guns, by previously law-abiding citizens -- and not by organized criminals. The perpetrators of gun violence are husbands shooting wives, neighbors shooting neighbors, employees firing at bosses, children's accidents, suicides, etc. All put together, they largely surpass homicides perpetrated by organized crime.

[Warren Stupidity]

1. Wait for it....

[hack89]

2. Three times the gun deaths with one third the population

a situation like that calls for unconventional solutions.

Their decrease is similar to America's - good to see the deaths go down.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. So if our rate went up by a factor of 9 you would support strict regulation?

[UnrepentantLiberal]

4. .

[hack89]

7. There are gun control laws we should pass regardless

universal background checks and mag size limits for example.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

5. Logic:

it's a good thing.

[valerief]

6. Use of guns is a male problem.

A: The use of guns is basically a male problem. In our societies, men subscribe to the old model of "warrior men" and to rural customs characterized by the use of force to solve problems. Movies keep alive the old macho model of masculinity. This backward tradition is reinforced by men's feelings of impotence in a hypercompetitive society. If they also have sexual insecurities, guns can make them feel stronger, more potent; with a gun, they will not be "naked."

One of our most successful media campaigns ironically associated sexual insecurity with the glorification of guns. Pretty and popular actresses said, "Good lovers don't need a gun." We deconstructed machismo, using the slogan "Choose Gun Free! It's Your Weapon or Me!" Young people loved it.

Love it! Gun-loving men seem like such weenies.

[davidthegnome]

8. I would call it a human problem.

If we're going to reference movies and TV shows, well, check out the show Alias, or Nikita, The Long Kiss Goodnight (I think that was it's title), or any number of other movies or shows that depict a woman as a superhero with a gun. It's not simply macho behavior that is the problem, it's the general acceptance that guns are a good way to solve problems. This may be more common in men, but it certainly applies to women as well.

I once debated whether or not to get a gun, there were a lot of break ins and some beatings in the neighborhood I lived in. I wondered if a gun would make me safer if someone attempted to break in and rob me, or harm me physically. While I came to the conclusion that it might make me safer, it would only do so by enabling me to kill someone who was likely desperate. As I have no interest in doing that, I'll rely on my body to be my last line of defense, it's impossible, in any event, to prepare for every conceivable situation.

Gun-loving people, I would suspect, are more fearful than those of us who do not feel the need for them. Perhaps in some instances though, they have good reason to be. Living in a dangerous neighborhood, particularly in a big city with a high murder rate.

I don't know what the solution is, but the problem pertains to all the human race.