One victim every minute
Jul 23rd 2003
>From The Economist Global Agenda
Many countries, from Brazil to Britain, are trying to cut violent crime by taking guns out of circulation, but the world is awash with more than 600m of them—and they continue killing almost 60 people an hour
LAST Thursday, as a Brazilian congressional committee debated a controversial bill to ban almost everyone other than the security forces from carrying guns, the streets of Rio de Janeiro were, once again, bearing witness to the need for such a measure: 11 people were shot dead in the latest in a series of turf battles between drugs gangs that have terrified local residents. On Wednesday July 23rd, Brazil's Senate approved the bill and sent it to the Congress's other house, the Chamber of Deputies, for consideration. But even in countries where gun crimes are much less common than in Brazil, such as Britain, there is also concern that they are becoming ever less so, and governments are introducing measures to try to take guns out of circulation.
The Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based independent research group, reckons that various governments’ initiatives over the past decade have taken more than 4m small arms off the streets. Britain’s latest nationwide gun amnesty, held earlier this year after the shootings of two teenage girls in Birmingham, brought in more than 40,000 weapons. And on July 1st, Australia’s government started a scheme to buy guns from the public, with the aim of taking around 65,000 weapons out of circulation. Australia’s gun-control measures are in reaction to a tragedy last October, in which a registered gun owner killed two students and injured five others in Melbourne. Canada’s government has just introduced a controversial and hugely expensive national gun register. Many Canadians, including Inuit hunters, object to having to register their guns, and are fighting in the courts to overturn the law.
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Rich
