Study links lax gun laws in Brazil and the U.S. to firearms used by Brazil's organized crime

An analysis by the Sou da Paz Institute released Tuesday concludes that looser gun regulations in Brazil, combined with weaker controls on United States-origin firearms, are helping arm Brazil's organized crime networks. The finding comes as gunmen in a car opened fire last November at São Paulo's international airport, killing cryptocurrency entrepreneur Antônio Vinícius Lopes Gritzbach. Police recovered three semiautomatic rifles at the scene, weapons that are restricted for civilian use.

Researchers reviewed records of nearly 7,000 seized firearms and related data from Brazil's southeast between 2019 and 2023, the region that includes São Paulo's PCC and Rio de Janeiro's Red Command. They found an 11.4% rise in seizures of restricted, military-style guns over the five-year period. Brazil-made weapons accounted for the majority of seizures, but firearms from the United States ranked a distant second in both complete weapons and unmarked components feeding the illegal market. A key case cited by the report said the São Paulo airport rifle set included a Smith & Wesson semiautomatic rifle bought by a U.S. citizen 15 years earlier in Winchester, Virginia; the other two were Romanian-made rifles, also purchased in the United States. Police have not determined how the guns entered Brazil. The authors also noted that not only complete firearms but also accessories and parts for restricted-use weapons from the United States were flowing into Brazil and being assembled locally.

The study notes that the data come from a region with both Brazil's largest city-based criminal groups and ongoing interregional smuggling routes. It also highlights that a surge in private gun ownership in Brazil occurred during the Bolsonaro era, a trend the authors say helped create a cheaper, legally ambiguous pathway for illicit actors to obtain firepower. The report cites a near doubling of privately owned firearms—from about 1.3 million at the end of 2018 to roughly 2.9 million in 2022—driven partly by transfers from sport shooters and collectors that were not fully tracked or controlled.

In July 2023, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed a decree tightening restrictions on civilian access to guns, reversing the pro-firearms policies of his predecessor. The decree restored restrictions on semiautomatic weapons, reduced the number of guns civilians can possess for personal safety from four to two, and required documentation proving the need to hold the weapons. Lula also tightened weapon registration requirements. "It’s clear that weaker gun controls during the Bolsonaro administration opened a new pathway for organized crime: cheaper, with a veneer of legality and enabled by straw buyers of rifles," said Carolina Ricardo, executive director of Sou da Paz.

The report noted that the United States remained the main foreign source of both complete firearms and unmarked components feeding Brazil’s illegal market. Natalia Pollachi, one of the authors, said there is a well-documented smuggling route from the U.S. to Brazil through Paraguay, Peru and Bolivia. The study found that not only complete firearms but also separate components for restricted-use weapons from the U.S. are illegally entering Brazil and being assembled locally. "The United States plays a key role because parts and components are sold there with far less regulation. Police reports often show these items being smuggled into Brazil," Pollachi added. Ricardo said that if the U.S. government believes the growth of organized crime threatens its interests—as it has with Mexico and Canada—it must also recognize that weak gun controls in the U.S. directly fuel organized crime in Brazil. "It’s fair for the U.S. to demand action from Brazil," the executive director of Sou da Paz said, "but it must first admit it is part of the problem."