MORE than 122 million Brazilians will make history today by voting in the world's first national referendum on the sale of guns, in a race that now seems certain to be won by a hair's breadth.

People stand in line to vote on a national referendum on firearms in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, Oct. 23, 2005. The referendum proposes banning the sale of firearms and ammunitions with special exception for police, the military, some security guards, gun collectors and sports shooters. It is the last phase of a 2003 disarmament law that sharply restricted who could legally purchase firearms and who could carry guns in the streets. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)

The vote will be on one simple question in the compulsory electronic poll - should the sale of firearms and ammunition be banned in Brazil?

In a country where one person dies from a gunshot wound every 15 minutes, supporters of the "Yes" campaign claim the ban could save thousands of lives every year.

Yet the "No" campaign is vehemently opposed, claiming prohibition is an infringement of civil liberties. All week it has been running hard- hitting publicity campaigns championing the "rights" of ordinary Brazilians to defend themselves.

At the polling booth, those who are against guns must vote Yes because of the way the referendum question is phrased - one experiment by news paper O Estado de S Paulo found 29 out of 100 readers choosing the wrong option to the one they wanted.

And although a July poll showed almost 80% were in favor of the ban, No campaigners have also grabbed so many floating votes that some polls suggest they could now win.

For Sandra Silva, a 53-year-old teacher from the city of Americana in São Paulo state, her choice to vote Yes to the ban could not be more clear-cut.

On November 24, 1993, Silva's 15-year-old son Sandro was killed in an accident when a gun, which he and friends had been playing with, went off.

The firearm had been left in a biscuit tin by his friend's parents, so that their teenage son could protect himself against potential attackers while they spent a weekend at the beach.

Speaking from her home to the Sunday Herald last week, Silva said: "Sandro went off to his friend's house on his way to an annual Hawaii ball. I didn't worry. I just said, 'Have fun.'

"Around midnight, my sister woke me up to tell me there had been a terrible accident and Sandro was in hospital. He died a couple of hours later.

"It will be 12 years next month since he was killed, but each November is terrible, and Christmas is worse still. My son was so full of life and he was just a child."

Sandro Silva was just one of more than 500,000 people killed by gunshot wounds in Brazil between 1979 and 2003, according to figures produced by Datasus. Brazilians own an estimated 17 million firearms.

But according to Josephine Bourgois, head researcher for the Small Arms Control project in Rio de Janeiro and author of Armas De Fogo, a book about the prohibition of arms, those who buy guns to protect themselves do not increase their chances of survival.

"Unfortunately, when they buy a gun, they are making the mistake of their lives," she said. "Police research shows that having a gun, in fact, increases your chance of being shot."

Bourgois admitted that simply voting Yes would not bring an end to violence, but said that the banning of guns was vital for the increased security in Brazil.

"Right now in Brazil we have a public health emergency - more young men are killed by guns than by any other means. We simply don't have time to wait for all our social initiatives to be successful before we ban guns. That step needs to be taken now," said Bourgois.

Today's referendum, the results of which are expected by around 8pm (local time), is just one of 37 measures put forward by a disarmament statute launched by President Lula da Silva's government in 2003 to tackle gun violence.

Following the introduction of the statute, as well as a gun buy-back scheme, figures released by the ministry of health in September showed that gun-death rates had fallen by 8% - the first drop in 13 years.

However, corruption scandals have dogged de Silva's Workers' Party in recent months, which, combined with budget cuts, may have given the No campaign an advantage.

Drug trafficking, gang violence and the illegal trade of arms are still rife in Brazil, and No campaigners are calling on the government to concentrate on the "bigger issues", rather then criminalizing the "innocent" intent on protecting themselves.

"It is already extremely difficult to buy a gun in Brazil," said Alberto Fraga, president of the Parliamentary Front For The Right To Legitimate Defense.

"The real problem is the trade of illegal arms. That's what the government should really be addressing. It should be looking at the roots of the problem - the lack of work, the lack of healthcare."

Though many critics point out that the vast majority of guns start off on the legal market and end up in the wrong hands, many are agreed on the need to address the underlying issues.

One person definitely voting Yes is 19-year-old Paula Graciela Dos Santos, who lives in the São Paulo favela (shantytown), Real Parque. At the beginning of the month, a 15-year-old boy was shot in the head at Paula's college when his friends brought a gun into the classroom.

"The other day, a boy was shot in the school where I study," she told Epoch magazine. "What does that achieve? And what can I do about it? Where is the sense in guns?"

However, some are already looking for loopholes, should the law be passed. Folha de S Paulo reported last week that membership of sporting gun clubs that grant licenses after 20 hours of lessons had increased by up to 70%.

Writing in the heavyweight left-wing weekly magazine Carta Capital, which largely backs the ban, leading commentators last week labeled the referendum "half- baked" and called on the government to implement more radical and rapid reform.

According to the most recent UN figures, in terms of equal wealth distribution, Brazil scrapes in just above Sierra Leone and is one of the most unequal countries in the world.

Denis Mizne, president of São Paulo's leading anti- violence organization Sou DA Paz (I am for peace), which has been working towards dis armament for more than a decade, said he took on board the criticism. But he insisted that the vote was an important one.

"We still have a lot of work to do to address violence in Brazil but this is part of that," he added. "Public safety is being discussed at the highest level and that can only help to address the violence."

© 2005 newsquest (sunday herald) limited

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