Brazil Has a Chance to Turn the Page Against Violence

In August last year, Brazilian farmer Reinaldo Huijsmans reported a break-in at his house in the town of Maracaju, where thieves stole six legally registered weapons, including a T4 Taurus assault rifle.  39-year-old Huijsmans is one of hundreds of thousands of Brazilians now registered to own guns, a group whose ranks have surged six-fold since far-right President Jair Bolsonaro was elected in 2018 and began loosening gun laws.

Two months later, Huijsmans' T4 turned up 800 miles away in the hands of a heavily-armed gang of alleged bank robbers ambushed and killed by cops near the city of Varginha, in Minas Gerais state.  Its presence in the hands of a group of alleged bank thieves highlights what Federal Police and public security experts say is an inevitable consequence of Bolsonaro's gun liberalizations: the criminal use of Brazil's fast-growing stock of legal weapons.

The men holed up in Varginha were part of a new breed of bank robbers conducting a wave of high-impact assaults across the interior of the country, police say. Known locally as "novo cangaco" gangs, these specialized crews terrorize cities, blow up bank safes and use human shields to escape, often stealing millions of dollars.  Named after "cangaceiros," the ragtag bandits who roamed the arid northeast in the late 19th century, Brazil's "novo cangaco" gangs have benefited from Bolsonaro's looser gun laws, according to police probes and interviews with officers involved in gun control and organized crime investigations.

Bolsonaro, a nationalist former soldier, has made it easier for Brazilians to bulk-buy firearms by registering with the army as hunters, marksmen or collectors, known as "CACs." With his encouragement, nearly 700,000 Brazilians have now accredited as CACs, up almost 500% since 2018.  Brazil's Federal Police disapproved of Bolsonaro's gun policies, arguing they would put more weapons in the hands of criminals.  "We constantly have issues with weapons bought by people with CAC permits," said one senior Federal Police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the politically sensitive subject. "Sadly, we're going to have problems with this for decades."

Of all the weapons now available to Brazil's gun fans, the T4 has emerged as the weapon of choice for its gangsters.  Manufactured by Brazilian gunmaker Taurus SA, the T4 hit the local market in 2019 as a direct result of Bolsonaro's newly liberalized gun laws. It has been a huge success for the company, which has sold around 60,000 units, helping to lift its share price around 350% since the start of 2019.

Tomorrow, Brazilians will be voting in their country’s most polarized election in decades, with Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva favored to beat the right-wing Bolsonaro.  Most polls have shown Lula with a solid lead for months, but Bolsonaro signaled he may refuse to accept defeat, stoking fears of institutional crisis or post-election violence.  Bolsonaro has threatened to contest the result of the vote, after making baseless allegations of fraud, accusing electoral authorities of plotting against him and suggesting the military should conduct a parallel tally, which they declined to do.