Gun violence kill 116 victims daily in Brazil: study

SAO PAULO

Firearms kill 116 victims daily in Brazil, according to a new study jointly released Wednesday by the Brazilian government, UNESCO, and the Latin American Social Sciences Institute, FLACSO.

The report said 42,416 people were killed in Brazil in 2012, the last year with comprehensive data on firearm mortality from the Ministry of Health. 

The figure equates to a national mortality rate of 21.9 gun-related deaths per 100,000 residents.

The 2012 figures represent the largest total number of firearms deaths in the study's history, which traces available data to 1980, and second-highest proportion of such fatalities. Only 2003 recorded a higher mortality rate, of 22.2 per 100,000 residents.

Those aged between 15 and 29 years made up the majority (59 percent) of those killed by guns, with 19- and 20-year-olds the most likely to be fatally shot.

Approximately 95 percent of the fatalities were murders with the remaining deaths were a result of suicides, accidents or recorded as unexplained.

Nearly all of the deaths, 94 percent, were males, and blacks were 142 percent more likely to be killed by guns than whites.

Led by FLASCO sociologist Julio Jacobo Waiselfisz, the study points to a number of factors behind the high number of deaths. "The tradition of impunity, the slow pace of court proceedings and a lack of preparedness by investigating police are all factors that collude to signal to society that violence is condoned under certain circumstances."

The northeastern state of Alagoas topped firearm-related fatalities with 55 deaths per 100,000 residents. The remote northernmost and least-populated state of Roraima had the smallest proportion with 7.5. 

Brazil's most populous state, São Paulo, placed third-last, with 10.1 gun deaths per 100,000 residents, whereas neighboring Rio de Janeiro state scored a higher rate of 22.1.

The report also estimated that more than 160,000 lives had been saved by the introduction of the 2003 Disarmament Statute, which brought gun controls to Brazil, although it concedes the statute was not enough to reduce gun deaths.