Entities express concern about the uncertain whereabouts of 6,000 weapons

The Sou da Paz Institute, the Brazilian Public Security Forum and the Igarapé Institute expressed concern about the uncertain whereabouts of 6,000 restricted-use weapons, equipment of high lethal power, which were not re-registered with the Federal Police (PF). According to the balance of the PF re-registration process, ended Wednesday (3), of the 50,432 restricted-use weapons that were with the population, registered in the Military Weapons Management System (Sigma), only 44,264 were re-registered. That is, 6,168 weapons for restricted use are in an undefined location and have become illegal. “We need to know where these 6,000 weapons are. We are not talking about revolver, pistol. We are talking about weapons considered of restricted caliber precisely because of the high destructive power they have. We are talking about rifles. These are weapons that have always been of great interest to organized crime when acquisitions were facilitated,” said Roberto Uchoa, federal police officer and advisor to the Brazilian Public Security Forum. According to the PF, weapons that have not been re-registered are now subject to administrative seizure, and owners may respond criminally for possession or illegal possession of a weapon. “It is a number that draws attention, there are 6 thousand, 14% of the restricted weapons re-registered, it is a very high percentage. The government will have to go after this, it will have to promote an active search for these weapons”, Uchoa highlighted. The opinion of the counselor of the Brazilian Public Security Forum is shared by the project manager of the Sou da Paz Institute, Bruno Langeani. For him, the high number of restricted weapons that were not re-registered indicates a risk of being in the hands of criminal factions. “We had already been warning about the risk that criminal factions were using Cacs [certificados de registro de armas para colecionadores, atiradores desportivos e caçadores] like oranges to deflect weapons,” he said. “This was done by using people with no criminal record to buy guns [como Cacs] and then these weapons were diverted, either with a report of false theft, or even without having this concern”, added Langeani. In a joint note, the Igarapé Institute and Sou da Paz stressed that weapons for restricted use, with greater lethal power, were not likely to be purchased by civilians until 2019, when the sale was authorized by the federal government. “It is worth remembering that, until 2019, these weapons could not be acquired by civilians. This shows the danger of the terrible legacy left by the irresponsible release of weapons of war during the Bolsonaro government”, says the text of the note. Permissible caliber weapons The entities also showed concern with the fact that the number of re-registered permitted caliber weapons has exceeded the registered ones. According to the PF balance sheet, there were 882,801 guns of permitted caliber registered, but 894,890 were re-registered, 12,089 more. “The government will need to explain this – whether they are people who did not need to re-register and re-registered, or people who had irregular weapons and tried to regularize in this process, which was not foreseen for this initiative”, said Langeani. For the counselor of the Brazilian Public Security Forum, the number of re-registered weapons greater than those registered may show that there were irregular weapons in circulation. “That points out that we have a problem there. [no cadastramento] and a comparison work will need to be done to understand what happened, which weapons were circulating without this registration done”. Success Entities consider re-registration a successful process, mainly due to the large amount of weapons re-registered in a short time. “The Igarapé and Sou da Paz Institutes celebrate the high adherence of Hunters, Shooters and Collectors (CACs) to the re-registration process. The balance released by the Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino, is impressive – almost 1 million weapons in 90 days. This demonstrates how most CACs understand the importance of effective arms and ammunition control.” For the counselor, the re-registration reached the main objective. “The campaign can be considered a success because it achieves the objective, which was, in principle, to really know the size of this market and point out eventual problems in the databases”, said Uchoa.

Agência Brasil