Gun Violence in Brazil

Yeah, probably not going to get 2000 posts.
Here’s one reason:

The other big reason being that… none of us live in Brazil.

Unless of course you want Poly to post 2000 times in a row :grimacing:

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There are many, many shooting deaths in the favelas.

But the worst is when the State and Federal police make a large incursion into a problematic favela in Rio. You can see 20+ deaths over the day. In short, its an absolute mess and a problem that will never be solved in my generation.

A few things people on here need to consider because few people have lived in Brazil.

In the wealthier areas of Rio, it is safer vs the US (I have lived in both countries so I have a good frame of reference) as it pertains to gun crime but it comes with a big caveat.

The vast majority of people with families live in secure gated communities with heavy security. So if you go from one gated community to another one you are quite safe because you will not see guns or any crime.

Pretty much all the “public” places families use (like high-end malls) have heavy security. So same situation as the gated communities, going from home to mall to home is very safe, and you won’t see guns or crimes.

Basically an entire ecosystem in Rio runs around heavily secured homes, malls, and schools. There is no gun crime at all there. Oddly enough, the only place were all sorts of people meet and interact of any social class with no gun crime is the beach. I asked my wife this was the case, and its just a cultural thing. The beach is like neutral ground for everybody.

Being able to walk around from point A to point B is something we take for granted in Europe, US, and Canada. In Brazil, this is simply not done and people are always careful about their surroundings to a very high degree. I remember my father in law asking me if I would be ok walking to the tube in Central London (Marylebone) at midnight after my wife & I had dinner with her parents. It was like a 10min walk from the restaurant and the area is quite safe. I did not fully understand his view of this at the time, but it makes complete sense now.

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This reminds me of my travel to South Africa. Much of social life seemed to revolve around going to/from the mall and back as safe havens in the midst of violence. The wealthy living in armed encampments with high walls and armed security is the norm in a number of third world countries including Brazil. This is not the case in the US, but we may be heading in that direction

I’ve felt like this is a long-term goal of the US conservative movement. Countless dystopian sci-fi stories have warned of this possibilty, yet we seem to be hurtling toward it at breakneck speed.

Random public mass shootings are a growing problem in the US that can happen anywhere, but it seems weird to say that its more dangerous than a country that requires having heavy security to go between two heavily secured areas.

I could go drive through the crappy part of town with an extremely high gun murder rate this afternoon and be just fine. I don’t need security to go anywhere.

The US has ~35,000 gun related deaths a year. More than half are suicides. Half of the gun related murders are related to urban street violence in poor communities. Half of the remainder are from domestic violence. A third of what is left are accident related. You get down to a few thousand each year that are “random”. It’s pretty easy to avoid most of the situations where those may happen (late nights and alcohol) without ever thinking about security.

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It seems weird that Poly is comparing the most guarded and secure areas with our entire country.

The US has a gun problem, absolutely. The odds of being killed by a gun if you don’t own one are still really low. The odds of being in a mass shooting or a freak accident are also really low.

And just like you wouldn’t go to the high risk areas, most of us wouldn’t hang out in ours, either. But we don’t just hang out in gated communities and malls, which sounds terrible.

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I left out police related standoffs or shootings. That’s another big chunk of what was left.

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Not my cup of tea, I like walking places.

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Same. The scenario Arthuritas and others describe would seem to be an impediment to getting the masses to use more public transit and be less car-centric.

Sounds like school shootings are picking up speed in Brazil

Those are public schools though with very limited security.

The top end private schools are basically fortresses now in Brazil with layered F2F security and biometric access for students, staff, and parents.

Sounds like a very safe country.

If you have enough money

I don’t disagree with this.

People pay top money for safety. Over time, society normalises this but visitors from safer, developed western countries find it all a bit crazy.

Safety for me, not for thee!!

Fun fact: rich people do this in the USA as well, so get off that “USA is too dangerous” bullshit. Your family won’t be be anywhere near the bottom 99% of the population.

Wasn’t Cuba like that once? It’s great until it isn’t…

Fun Fact:

In Rio, you don’t see mentally unwell people carrying guns in supermarkets and cars. Or at home.

After Bolsonaro got booted, Lula is now going to eviscerate the looser gun culture Bolsonaro pushed for, as he was trying to emulate the US.

So if anything, I would argue that Brazil will be trending to much tougher regulations about guns vs the US. And from my observations, the US is actually trending to “worse” now due to theTrump effect and the current Supreme Court makeup who are heavily 2A.

Because of this I would still be more comfortable in Brazil vs the US. Just too many gun toting crazies running around the US now. It also looks like the situation in the US is getting worse long-term.