Arms Control

Antônio Rangel Bandeira (photo) has owned three guns and was a shooting instructor in the army. But upon learning the statistics on deaths by firearms, the sociologist had a change of heart. Project Coordinator of Viva Rio's Arms Control project, Rangel has spent the last decade trying to change public opinion and disarm Brazilian society.

The Deputy who brought hundreds of militia soldiers to justice, Marcelo Freixo (PSOL) is leading a new Parlimentary Hearing Commission on public security in Rio de Janeiro: an arms hearing, which will investigate the origins and destinations of arms in circulation, seeking to uncover and tackle State corruption in arms trafficking.

The shocking surge in armed violence over the past two years in Mexico’s northern border has created a no man’s land for the press and an exodus of civilians. But joint initiatives of Mexican authorities with U.S. enforcement have also elicited an unprecedented wealth of data on gun trafficking from the US into the Mexican drug trade organizations. A new paper by Colby Goodman and Michel Marizco analyses the firearms involved in the violence.

"There is not enough monitoring of international arms trade transfers", said Rob Thomson, lead researcher of the Ceasefire Campaign South Africa. His organization issued a report on the nation´s arms transfers, asking that international standards on arms transfers be met and making the information, for the first time, public.

Public Security Programme Coordinator of the UN-LiREC, the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, William Godnick gave InterCambio an exclusive interview on his new police training course and comments on the role of police training in lowering youth violence.

Emmy award winner Canadian documentary filmmaker Shelley Saywell talks to Comunidad Segura about her work: 20 years focusing on the effects of conflict, war and violence in a number of films that have taken her from Gaza to South Africa, from Bosnia to Afghanistan. Her film The Devil's Bargain examines gun running, starting in Somalia and connecting the dots to Europe and North America.

Santa Fé is one of the Argentina's most violent municipal districts, but its citizens have responded remarkably, engaging in one of the nation's most successful gun collection campaigns.

Congresswoman and Ministry of Interior Daisy Tourné, one of the champions of gun control in Uruguay speaks to Comunidad Segura about security and gun control in her country.

The Secretary of State for Public Security of Rio, José Mariano Beltrame, analyzes the reasons and benefits of introducing a new type of weapons (1,500 carbines CT-30 Taurus, caliber .30M1) for the Military and Civilian Police of the State and exposes political guidelines that oriented this purchase.

Antonio Carlos Magalhães, director of Condor SA, talks about the use of non-lethal technologies as the best alternative to firearms in situations in which, with the controlled use of force, incidents can be resolved, for instance, controlling crowds or small public events.