Organizations point to false arguments in PL that alters the Disarmament Statute

Malu Dacio – from Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – After the Constitution and Justice Committee grants consideration, last day 16, this week, the Federal Senate should return the PL 3.723/2019. The Igarapé Institute, together with Instituto Sou da Paz, released a technique analyzing false arguments used in defense of the text and answering them.

The bill, presented by the Executive to Congress, provides for the carry for hunters, shooters and collectors (CACs), limits the tracking of weapons and ammunition, after three years of issuing rules that facilitated access to large arsenals, and is already called by critics the ‘loose cannon law’. The organizations have positioned themselves defending that the bill cannot be approved by the Senate.

The organizations point out that one of the main arguments of the bill’s supporters is that the PL would guarantee “legal security” for these categories, and the publication of the statement comes to “refute and demystify this and other false arguments in favor of the approval of the PL”.

In the document, the organizations refute five fallacious arguments that are being used in defense of the bill, and some of the main dangers that it represents.

Argumentation

The first contested argument is that “If PL3723 is not approved, it will be the end of shooting sports in Brazil, and thousands of people will be unemployed. The note says that the statement is false because the regulation of shooting sports in Brazil already existed before the publication of the presidential decrees on the subject and the presentation of PL 3.723/2019 and never prevented the high-level practice, in Brazil, which even, won a medal in the 2016 Olympics.

The second argument of the defenders is that PL 3.723/2019 is much more restrictive and ends several rights of CACs. But, the note argues that the project defines as “a right of every Brazilian citizen” the activities of shooting sports and the collection and registration of weapons for hunting (prohibited in the country). Besides this, it establishes a minimum limit for the purchase of weapons, and not a maximum, and foresees as the Army’s role to encourage the activity, in flagrant conflict with the attribution of the regulatory and inspection body of the activity and guarantor of public order and national defense.

Another justification would be that the project has nothing to do with self-defense but with the regulation of a sport activity. However, the entities defend that, in practice, the PL guarantees the possibility of carrying guns for all shooters with more than 5 years of registration and a gun in their collection, besides authorizing the transport of a gun with ammunition, at any time of the day and any route, going against the prohibition of carrying a firearm in the country.

“This authorization is in no way related to any sporting or leisure activity, and constitutes a camouflaged way of carrying a gun for the almost half million shooters registered in the country”, says an excerpt of the note.

Another defense is that the project is about sports shooters, and has nothing to do with public security. However, the text of the entities states that every economic or sport activity has to be regulated considering the public interest and the individual and collective risks linked to the practice.

“Weapons, ammunition and gunpowder, among other items, are on the list of products controlled by the Army, precisely because of the impact they have on public order and safety. Their lack of control increases the risks that armed groups threaten the rights of the Brazilian population and democracy itself”, another excerpt highlights.

Finally, the note responds to claims that “crimes are not committed with CACs’ weapons: criminals do not use legal weapons. The organizations say that there are thousands of CACs who comply with the rules of their activities as provided by law. The discussion about the setbacks of PL 3.723/2019, according to the entities, does not pass through the criminalization of these categories.

“On the contrary, the concern is exactly to prevent these categories from being used as a way to access arsenals that are later diverted to illegality, as well as to facilitate the work of public agents responsible for preventing and confronting these deviations and for investigating homicides. However, cases involving these detour are not few – and are very serious”, he concludes.

Increase in sales

The entities also argue that the appreciation of the project by the CCJ of the Senate becomes more incoherent when it is glimpsed the increase in registrations granted to these categories, over the past few years, without improving the capacity to inspect the arsenals of weapons and ammunition in the country.

The institutes argue that in 2020, the amount allocated by the federal government for inspection operations was R$ 3 million, 15% less than in 2018 and 8% less than in 2019. 

In the year 2021 alone, more than 1,000 registrations were granted, per day, on average, by the Army. As of December 2021, there were over 1 million active hunter, shooter, and collector registrations, which is a 325% increase compared to 2018.

See note in full: