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Brazil sets new record for homicides

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Re: Brazil sets new record for homicides

#41

Post by epx »

slig wrote: post #29
coliveira wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, and this happens because Brazil is one of the most disgustingly unequal countries in the world. There was a small pause during the leftist governments when there was a noted improvement in social support for the poor, but the recent events have brought even that to an end. The current government is not only corrupt but is completely anti-people. Their plan is to cut the little existing social net, destroy pu…

> Their plan is to cut the little existing social net, destroy public education, and put everyone who complains under military surveillance. Can you give sources for that affirmations?

He cannot because it is not true. Even the leftists (the true-blue ones) admit that left leaning governments have dropped the ball big time regarding security.

As other comments already clarified, 90% of the problem is drug-related, the correct fix would be the decriminalization of them.

Re: Brazil sets new record for homicides

#42

Post by goshx »

MrEfficiency wrote: post #32
rvr_ wrote: post #18

Brazilian here. Our criminality numbers are _probably_ higher than the official numbers. The country is huge and diverse, but even the most pacific states and cities are in a bad shape if compared to almost any other country. More than 70% of the deaths are related to gang conflicts. Drugs are not the only problem. We also have a lot of cargo/truck stealing, street-level robbery, an enormous black market of stolen mo…

Whats this like for civilians that are not involved? I hear about the crime in my country, but it seems unreal to me because in my area you'd never know there were dozens of murders last weekend. Does this affect your life?

You never know when you are going to be targeted, so you live in this constant fear. Ask anyone who lives in Brazil what they do if they see two guys in a motorcycle coming their way.

I've been robbed at gun point; I've woken up with someone inside my bedroom stealing my laptop; I've been followed home; The bus from the public transport system I used to take was stopped by criminals and set on fire; and so on.

It used to affect only the life of those living in the metropolitan areas, but now it is spreading.

The main reason why I moved to the US was because I was living in such a state that I was always tense. When I was robbed at gun point I almost got shot because the guy thought I was too calm and suspected I was a cop.

Living in the US I realized how much that was affecting my daily life and how life without worrying feels like.

That's how it affects your life.

Re: Brazil sets new record for homicides

#43

Post by tomcam »

simonh wrote: post #36
tomcam wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> America's crazy gun laws are pushed by gun lobbies because they help increase sales by creating an easy way to funnel guns into South and Central America. What? The Bill of Rights was that prescient? I assume it is our freedom of the press that’s responsible for the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf?

Brit here, no but the Communist Manifesto is on us.

My point exactly

Re: Brazil sets new record for homicides

#45

Post by simonh »

dbelchamber wrote: post #2

Eesh. If all of this is accurate, it is problematic indeed. I wonder how many of these homicides would cease to occur if drugs were made legal in Brazil (I wonder about this worldwide). I've never understood why it's difficult for people to understand the awful incentive structures that making drugs illegal puts into motion.

I just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing.

'Making drugs legal' is frequently miss-understood. Treating addiction as a public health problem by decriminalising addicts and personal posession while keeping the trade in drugs firmly illegal, as in Portugal and now Norway, looks like the way to go.

The recent changes to the law in Norway are widely reported as 'decriminalising drugs'. That is highly misleading. They have decriminalised drug use and personal possession, but the drugs trade itself is still criminal.

Re: Brazil sets new record for homicides

#46

Post by forinti »

ulzeraj wrote: post #23
mavdi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brazil, like most of South (and now perhaps north too?) America suffers from macho populism. A lot of character politicians with tough messages, empty promises and sadly the population just falls for it every time. These stats, along with others, is the result of years of populism, corruption and neglect.

Let’s ignore the fact that the last president was a woman and that this is the direct result of her party disastrous administration. Blame machismo. It always works.

The lower house has 513 members and 54 women. The senate has 81 members and 13 women. Only 12% of mayors are women. Dilma was the first and only female president.

Re: Brazil sets new record for homicides

#47

Post by briandear »

djsumdog wrote: post #21
anoncoward111 wrote: post #3

I recently moved to a "bad neighborhood" and was very surprised to learn that there was only one murder here last year, and it was between friends who had stolen something from each other. There were only around 13,000 murders last year in the US, a number that used to be more like 26,000 during the crack epidemic 30 years ago. US population has increased by 10s of millions since then, but murders continue to drop. A…

Random crime in general is actually pretty rare. You are always most likely to be a victim of a crime by a family member, 2nd a person you know. Even in Brazil I bet a lot of this happens in communities, where they can try to justify violence due to some perceived slight. And of course let's not forget that America's crazy gun laws are pushed by gun lobbies because they help increase sales by creating an easy way to…

> let's not forget that America's crazy gun laws are pushed by gun lobbies because they help increase sales by creating an easy way to funnel guns into South and Central America.

Could we please stick to facts? US gun laws have essentially no impact on this issue. Based on murder rates, it would seem like Brazil is the place with "crazy" gun laws. Shifting responsibility for Brazil's violence to US gun manufacturers is intellectually dishonest. Ultimately, Brazilians are pulling triggers and they're pulling triggers of mostly Brazilian weapons.

US gun makers sell a lot more guns to Americans than Brazilians, yet Brazil has 63,880 homicides? The US had 17,250 homicides and over 125 million more people. The idea that Brazilian homicides are because of US gun makers is just absurd.

Homicide rates don't directly correlate to gun availability. Mexico had 29,168 homicides in 2017 with a population of 200 million fewer people than in the US. And Mexico has some of the strictest gun laws anywhere. Venezuela has the third highest murder rate in the world and the influence of the US gun lobby is non-existent. Most weapons there have some sort of Soviet/Cuban/socialist origin. You won't find too many Smith and Wesson's on the streets of Caracas.

Venezuela passed the "Control of Arms, Munitions and Disarmament Law" with the stated aim of disarming all citizens, with prison sentences up to 20 years for even possessing a gun. And what happened? The homicide rate rose from 73 per 100k to 90 per 100k (despite Maduro being known from undercounting crime.) Correlation doesn't imply causation of course, but the point is that Venezuela's homicide rates have nothing to do with the US gun lobby. It's absurd to even make such a connection.

In Brazil, over 68% of guns seized by police were manufactured by Brazilian government subsidized firms including Taurus, Rossi, IMBEL and CBC. Most of these guns were purchased or stolen from Brazil. My 68% number comes from 2014, but here's a report from 2011-2012 that shows similar numbers: http://www.soudapaz.org/upload/file/relatorio_armas_do_crime...

The point is that some political cheap shot on US gun laws and the "gun lobby" isn't even relevant to this problem in Brazil. In terms of "assault" rifles, an AK-47 is more common in Brazil than US-manufactured weapons. So we could just as as much argue that leftist-government gun policies are just as much to blame since AK-47s are vestiges of the Soviet-Cuban-backed socialist revolutionary groups from the 1980s. But even that argument is weak considering the vast majority of weapons used in Brazilian violent crime are handguns of Brazilian origin.

The point is, Brazilian violent crime is a Brazilian problem. Dragging US gun laws into this debate is just ridiculous since such an assertion isn't backed by any actual data.

Re: Brazil sets new record for homicides

#48

Post by gassiss »

MrEfficiency wrote: post #32
rvr_ wrote: post #18

Brazilian here. Our criminality numbers are _probably_ higher than the official numbers. The country is huge and diverse, but even the most pacific states and cities are in a bad shape if compared to almost any other country. More than 70% of the deaths are related to gang conflicts. Drugs are not the only problem. We also have a lot of cargo/truck stealing, street-level robbery, an enormous black market of stolen mo…

Whats this like for civilians that are not involved? I hear about the crime in my country, but it seems unreal to me because in my area you'd never know there were dozens of murders last weekend. Does this affect your life?

You get super paranoid. I've lived in Rio de Janeiro all my life, and I've never heard of anyone who either was never mugged or had someone very close that was (by someone close, I mean spouse, parent or child).

I've seen three people being mugged in front of my place, and I don't live in a place locals would call "dangerous".

But that's just me. Besides some common practices that have become instinct, like not using your phone outside and looking over your shoulder in desert places (or avoiding these places altogether), I think the majority of the population got numb to this situation and just accepted it like it is normal.

Re: Brazil sets new record for homicides

#49

Post by bennicholes »

goshx wrote: post #42
MrEfficiency wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats this like for civilians that are not involved? I hear about the crime in my country, but it seems unreal to me because in my area you'd never know there were dozens of murders last weekend. Does this affect your life?

You never know when you are going to be targeted, so you live in this constant fear. Ask anyone who lives in Brazil what they do if they see two guys in a motorcycle coming their way. I've been robbed at gun point; I've woken up with someone inside my bedroom stealing my laptop; I've been followed home; The bus from the public transport system I used to take was stopped by criminals and set on fire; and so on. It use…

Where did you live in Brazil? As an American I visit the interior of São Paulo and Belo Horizonte often and have never experienced anything like this, nor does it seem my Brazilian friends live in constant anxiety.

Re: Brazil sets new record for homicides

#50

Post by slig »

epx wrote: post #41
slig wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their plan is to cut the little existing social net, destroy public education, and put everyone who complains under military surveillance. Can you give sources for that affirmations?

He cannot because it is not true. Even the leftists (the true-blue ones) admit that left leaning governments have dropped the ball big time regarding security. As other comments already clarified, 90% of the problem is drug-related, the correct fix would be the decriminalization of them.

I know. This is the second time in a couple of weeks that I seem blatant lies about my country here on HN.
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