In just four years in office, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro introduced reforms that increased gun ownership six-fold. But on Jan. 1, on his first act in office, the newly inaugurated Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed an executive order banning sales of guns and ammunition and limiting people to a maximum of three guns. Lula also banned concealed carry and is moving to take away gun ownership licenses issued under Bolsonaro. Naturally, gun-control supporters are thrilled, but none of the leading academics who support these policies are willing to put their money where their mouths are and bet that murder rates will fall.
Over the last five years, many academics and journalists predicted Bolsonaro’s dramatic loosening of gun-control laws, which started in 2019, would cause murder rates to soar in the country. Now, they predict that Lula’s severe crackdown on gun ownership will reduce crime.
A Washington Post article on Brazil in December claimed: “Research consistently shows that when private gun ownership goes up, killings follow.” Back in 2018, immediately before Bolsonaro became president, outlets worldwide such as The New York Times warned: “[Bolsonaro’s policy] is worrying some experts who argue that more guns fuel more violence.”
Unique One-Country Case Study
Brazil provides a unique experiment because of how radical the changes in law are. In the U.S., the handgun bans in Chicago and Washington, D.C., provide the closest case studies. But many gun-control activists dismissed the post-ban increases in murder in those cities, arguing that the ban could only work if the entire country instituted
