We are constantly told by the left that gun control laws are necessary in order to keep us safe from violence.
They tell us that there is a direct link between gun sales and an increase in violent crime. After every mass shooting, the liberal media points to new restrictions on the right to bear arms as the only way to prevent violence like this from happening.
Yet developments in Brazil may throw a wrench in the whole leftist narrative surrounding gun violence.
On Friday, The Washington Post reported that since President Jair Bolsonaro came to power four years ago and began relaxing restrictions, gun ownership has grown “at least sixfold.”
According to the leftist narrative, things in Brazil should have taken a violent turn for the worse as a direct result of this. But according to the Post, that has not been the case.
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Instead, since 2017, the homicide rate in Brazil has fallen more than 27 percent.
Speaking to the Post, one young Brazilian said, “Everyone said there would be more homicides when Bolsonaro loosened the restrictions. But it turned out to be the opposite!”
Retired military police chief Marcelo Venera called it a “triumph of liberty” and said that “there is nothing wrong with loving guns.”
The Post contributors who wrote this story couldn’t rest in that knowledge, as it seems to contradict the left’s entire narrative.
Does more gun ownership make society safer?
Yes: 98% (43 Votes)
No: 2% (1 Votes)
They desperately searched for any other explanation for this reduction in violent crime in order to discredit the theory that gun ownership actually makes society safer, at one point saying that “research consistently shows that when private gun ownership goes up, killings follow.”
There are other factors that contributed to the decrease in homicides in Brazil, such as the cooling of turf battles between Brazil’s infamous drug cartels and investment in policing, as the Post noted.
One thing is certain, however: Whether or not the increase in gun ownership led to a decrease in homicides, it certainly did not lead to an increase.
The left historically struggles with the idea that there may be ways to stop violent crime that don’t involve banning guns. Their cause is not helped by the fact that in the U.S., gun control laws have repeatedly failed to stop mass shootings, as criminals have inevitably found ways to get around the laws.
Illinois, for instance, has some of the most stringent anti-gun laws in the country. Despite those laws, in July, a criminal was still able to commit a mass shooting in Highland Park outside of Chicago.
New York is also famous for its gun control laws, and nevertheless, a criminal was able to blow past them and commit a mass shooting in Buffalo earlier this year.
These case studies present an interesting conundrum for the left. By their logic, Brazil should be seeing a massive increase in violent crime and New York and Illinois a massive decrease.
Instead, the opposite seems to have occurred.
Whether or not that can be directly linked to gun laws is still up for debate. But it does show that the left’s preferred gun policies do not have the desired effect.
