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Referendum on gun sales ban in Brazil

The Christian Science Monitor is reporting on the Brazilian referendum to limit (the article is unclear just how, but significantly) gun sales. It sounds as if gun sales would be limited to hunters, collectors, etc., and those with a stiff registration fee and paperwork requirements.

The article reports the polls are going back and forth, starting with a big majority for "yes" and now with a majority for "no."

Interesting notes: Brazil's population (122 million according to this article, 162 million reported elsewhere) is somewhat under a third that of the US, and its estimated gun density (17 million) is somewhat under a tenth of ours. Yet its homicide rate is twice ours (and the article notes, Venezuela's rate is higher. That's just south America -- as I've noted, all the former Soviet republics have much higher homicide rates than the US, a fact not apparent when they were USSR, since the Soviet government deliberately under-reported. I think the claim that the US has an unusually high homicide rates is steadily failing.

[UPDATE: The Mercury interviewed Brady Campaign on it. It describes the ban as "banning the sales of guns and bullets to almost all civilians." It then reports: "U.S. gun-control advocates could use Brazil as a test case for tighter laws, although not a total ban, said Peter Hamm, a spokesman for the Washington-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which advocates tougher gun restrictions."

(1) Once again, Brady shows its only real agenda is "anything that restricts gun ownership" -- including in this case complete or near-complete bans on rifles and (2) in light of this, its support for the DC ban, etc., Brady will find it harder and harder to argue that it only favors "reasonable limitations" on handguns.]

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