I haven’t written anything really opinionated in a couple of years, but I am rather taxed by irrational, emotionally driven rhetoric out there in response to the Orlando shooting, that “we need to take all the guns away.” I let this cook for few days, but finally decided to put this out there.[1]
We go with what we know, and let me speak from experience. I love Brazil, and I love Brazilians. I could have retired in the USA close to my family but I chose to continue living and working in Brazil. Nevertheless, I live everyday with the constant awareness of the violence. Now, I want to be careful to not appear to be bashing Brazilians. The problem with Brazil isn’t the average Brazilian. Brazilians are, as a people, warm, loving and generous. I’ve never met anyone as quick to do whatever they can to help another person, and if they thought you really needed it, they would give you the shirt off their back or their flipflops in a heartbeat. If I meet a Brazilian who is eating an APPLE, they will offer me a bite! Seriously!
But ask the Brazilians about whether they feel safe, and who has made it so that they are not safe. The past two weeks I’ve been speaking at conferences in rural Brazil–not in Rio–and I heard repeatedly that the people in rural Brazil live in constant fear of being molested, robbed and murdered, and decry the fact that they have no way to protect themselves, because the government took their guns away.
So, let’s go with the facts about ALL murders (not just gun deaths–I couldn’t find those statistics for Brazil), as published by the UN for Brazil and by the FBI for the USA:
Murder rate in Brazil: 32.4 per 100,000
Murder rate in the USA: 4.5 per 100,000
Murder rate among crazy Nebraskans, with open carry permits on demand: 2.9 per 100,000.
Brazil has some of the strictest gun laws in the world, and yet the murder rate is 700 percent higher than in the USA as a whole, and 1,100 percent higher than Nebraska. And yet someone wants to tell me we should implement a policy which has been aggressively imposed on Brazilians, with such horrific results? Really???
Just for “fun”….
Average homicide rates for all LARGE CITIES in USA:
10.2 per 100,000, more than twice the rate for all the USA.
But when we look at the murder capitols of the USA:
#1: Baltimore: 55 per 100K–strict gun control laws, and still 30% higher than Brazil, and significantly higher than Rio. (Tá bom??)
#2: Detroit: 43 per 100K–in spite of strict gun control laws.
You are more likely to be murdered in Baltimore or Detroit, than in Rio. Makes me glad I lived in Rio!!!!
And do not tell me the problem is that folks from Baltimore and Detroit (or Chicago, bless their hearts) have such a high murder rate, because they can go elsewhere to buy their guns, when the places where they go to buy their guns–usually illegally–do not have the murder rates as high as Baltimore and Detroit! The problem isn’t WHERE people get their guns, the problem is in the demographics. Or should I say, in the “Democrato-graphics”, given the ruling political parties in Baltimore and Detroit (and Chicago).
Folks, the fact is that criminals and terrorists like Omar Mateen WILL ALWAYS HAVE ACCESS to firearms, even if they live in a country where the president is socialist, like Brazil. Or the USA. The problem isn’t that a Muslim terrorist got a gun. Criminals and terrorists will ALWAYS have access to guns…whether in Scandinavia, in France, or in Belgium. And yes, even in the good ol’ USA. The problem isn’t that Mateen had a gun. I propose that, aside from wholesale immigration from violent countries, the problem is that none of the people in an Orlando bar were armed and capable of defending themselves.
Final two questions: If a guy walked into a barbecue in Texas and started to unload his AR15 at the crowd, just how long do you think that would have lasted? And if I can ask, how does a guy with an AR15 get into a bar in Orlando in the first place???
[1] Se você for brasileiro, talvez seja melhor não ler o que segue. E se ler, já peço perdão por qualquer informação realmente errada, se for.
Reblogged this on Rifleman III Journal.
As a former rural resident of Venezuela, I feel for the rural residents of Brazil. I’m lucky to have left with my life, such as it is. It was (I assume it still is) extremely difficult to legally acquire arms in Venezuela. Illegally? Easy. The effective war on the oligarquia targets the smaller, less-politically connected clans. I cannot imagine how difficult it is to have a small farm, with livestock, today under the current conditions. Simple local guerilla-tactics are their own form of terrorism.
When retiring to a Third World country, I suggest bringing along one’s own army. Adopting a local family, one way or another, is also advisable.
There is nothing simple about the Orlando shooting, nor Sandy Hook for that matter.