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2005 Brazilian firearms and ammunition referendum

Field	Value
name	2005 Brazilian firearms and ammunition referendum
country	Brazil
title	Should the commerce of firearms and ammunition be prohibited in Brazil?
date
yes	33333045
no	59109265
total	95375824
electorate	122042615
outcome	Brazil approves the commerce of firearms and ammunition. However, President Lula maintains the prohibition.
map	2005 Brazilian firearms and ammunition referendum - Results by state.svg
map_caption	Results by state
No

On 23 October 2005, Brazil held a country-wide referendum on article 35 of the Disarmament Statute to determine whether to approve or disapprove the article, which states in full, "The sale of firearms and ammunition is prohibited in the entire national territory, except to those entities provided in article 6 of this Law." ("Art. 35. É proibida a comercialização de arma de fogo e munição em todo o território nacional, salvo para as entidades previstas no art. 6o desta Lei.") The referendum failed by nearly two-thirds, and that part of the statute was not enacted.

The referendum and its date had been provided by the Disarmament Statute itself (art. 35, §1o). During the drafting and development of the law, it had been decided that article 35 should be submitted to a referendum because of the importance of its subject. On 7 July 2005, the Federal Senate of Brazil promulgated legislative decree 780, which authorized the referendum. Article 2 of its decree stipulated that the public consultation should employ the following question: "Should commerce in firearms and ammunition be prohibited in Brazil?" ("O comércio de armas de fogo e munição deve ser proibido no Brasil?")

Background

Voting was compulsory for people between the ages of 18 and 70. The belief of a fundamental natural human right to self-defense, low efficacy of police, high levels of use of illegal weapons in crimes in contrast to a very rare usage of legal weapons, are some of the factors that may have influenced 65% of Brazilian people to vote against the ban proposal. The gun ban proposal received broad support in the press, while celebrities were generally in favor of it, only Brazil's anti-ban social groups and right-wing press, most importantly Veja the Brazilian news magazine (indeed weekly publication of any kind) with the largest paid circulation in the country. Other media, like the powerful Globo group (owners of Brazil's largest TV network Rede Globo) and newspapers of record like Folha de S.Paulo advocated clearly pro gun ban. The then President Lula was a self-declared pro gun ban power.

According to the Brazilian constitution, every citizen has the right to self-defense and the pro-gun campaigners focused their arguments on this constitutional right, as well as making economic arguments.

A decisive argument made by the pro-gun campaigners was to question the morality of the government removing a right from its citizens, resulting in a strong feeling among voters that no rights should ever be allowed to be taken away by the government. Also, there were debates about the significant cultural status of gun ownership in the southern states of the country.

Another major argument used by the pro-gun ownership campaigners was that the absolute majority of the gun crimes in Brazil were committed with unregistered and illegal guns, specially high caliber guns, that were already forbidden in Brazil and due to that, it would be of no use to forbid law-abiding citizens to own legal registered guns in accordance to the law. This argument was strongly reinforced by the fact that the regions where gun ownership is widespread were the ones with the smallest number of gun-related deaths. In the South region where there is the highest number of legal guns per citizen only 59% of all murders were caused by firearms in contrast to 70% in the Northeast where there is the lowest number of legal firearms per citizen.

The anti-gun proponents argued that guns are dangerous for society and that their only reason to exist is to harm others.

The anti-gun campaign received widespread support from several famous actors, musicians and other Brazilian celebrities and a noticeable support from the nation's main TV station, Rede Globo.

The ban had the backing of the federal government and sections of the Brazilian Roman Catholic Church. The anti-gun lobby received vast support and free coverage from the press, including Rede Globo, Brazil's largest TV network despite its parent company fairly neutral stance which eventually was reflected. By that time most Protestant-evangelical news organizations had taken a clearly anti-ban stance (including the Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus-owned Rede Record, Globo's main competitor at the time).

International support

The IANSA member groups Instituto Sou da Paz and Viva Rio |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031102061153/http://www.iansa.org/about/members/samerica.htm |archive-date=2003-11-02 |url-status=dead |access-date=2008-07-23 |archive-date=30 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110430095951/http://www.alternet.org/story/38268/?page=entire |url-status=dead

Results

Although the federal government, the Catholic Church, and the United Nations argued in favor of the proposal, the result was a victory for those against the ban, with over 63% of the voters opposed.

By region

Registered	Turnout	Votes	%	Yes	No	Yes
Midwest	8,545,003	75.38%	1,971,506	4,308,155	31.40%	68.60%
North	8,418,948	72.10%	1,718,131	4,232,295	28.87%	71.13%
Northeast	32,991,409	74.78%	10,147,793	13,735,686	42.49%	57.51%
South	18,564,114	81.78%	3,028,661	11,812,085	20.41%	79.59%
Southeast	53,523,141	80.36%	16,466,954	25,021,044	39.69%	60.31%

By state

Registered	Turnout	Votes	%	Yes	No	Yes
Acre	389,137	69.49%	43,025	221,828	16.24%	83.76%
Alagoas	1,774,914	73.05%	568,083	690,448	45.14%	54.86%
Amazonas	1,688,287	73.16%	374,090	839,007	30.84%	69.16%
Amapá	332,589	75.61%	65,593	181,764	26.52%	73.48%
Bahia	8,952,123	72.07%	2,770,718	3,448,907	44.55%	55.45%
Ceará	5,144,516	76.53%	1,730,922	2,090,103	45.30%	54.70%
Espírito Santo	2,253,444	77.19%	736,510	982,056	43.62%	56.38%
Federal District	1,564,500	77.19%	528,169	695,328	43.17%	56.83%
Goiás	3,620,968	74.39%	839,508	1,776,072	32.10%	67.90%
Maranhão	3,735,131	70.72%	995,849	1,565,845	38.87%	61.13%
Minas Gerais	13,320,622	78.28%	3,889,398	6,155,748	38.72%	61.28%
Mato Grosso	1,854,477	72.78%	305,457	1,016,288	23.11%	76.89%
Mato Grosso do Sul	1,505,058	72.78%	298,372	820,467	26.67%	73.33%
Pará	3,999,863	72.04%	928,006	1,894,619	32.88%	67.12%
Paraíba	2,468,633	78.34%	690,751	1,183,463	36.866%	63.14%
Paraná	6,948,437	80.45%	1,463,776	3,988,689	26.85%	73.15%
Pernambuco	5,656,670	76.85%	1,918,048	2,296,510	45.51%	54.49%
Piauí	1,990,993	76.65%	545,828	928,883	37.09%	62.91%
Rio de Janeiro	10,645,180	81.17%	3,155,897	5,124,572	38.11%	61.89%
Rio Grande do Norte	1,558,081	76.99%	575,783	938,514	38.02%	61.98%
Rio Grande do Sul	7,593,504	82.88%	812,207	5,353,854	13.17%	86.83%
Rondônia	954,308	70.83%	144,117	519,425	21.72%	78.28%
Roraima	216,022	73.49%	23,453	132,928	15.00%	85.00%
Santa Catarina	4,022,170	82.01%	752,678	2,469,542	23.36%	76.64%
São Paulo	27,303,895	81.32%	8,685,149	12,788,668	40.45%	59.55%
Sergipe	1,245,913	78.68%	351,811	596,013	37.12%	62.88%
Tocantins	838,742	71.15%	139,847	442,724	24.01%	75.99%

References

"LEI N^o 10.826, DE 22 DE DEZEMBRO DE 2003.".
"Decreto Legislativo n^o 780, de 2005".
(2014-12-16). "Lula defende o Estatuto do Desarmamento".
Lage, Janaina. (25 October 2005). "População não quis abrir mão de direito no referendo, diz Palocci".
Urbim, Emiliano (2008). "Mapa da morte", Superinteressante, Nº 262, Pp 30 and 31.
(2005-08-05). "The Campaign for the Brazilian Referendum Starts Today". IANSA.
[https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4368598.stm Brazilians reject gun sales ban] BBC News, 24 October 2005
Associated Press. (October 23, 2005). "Brazilians Block Gun Ban". Fox News.

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