(Click here for part 1)
Gun Control activists both in Brazil and the US, wasted not one millisecond to clamor for more gun control. Funny thing is that very few news outlets in the US reported that the guns used by Menezes were not Evil Assault Weapons in the Glock 30 Round clip configuration but plain old six shooters with a design over a century old. Yet, if anything, this awful event destroyed several myths sponsored by those Gun Control Groups.
Myths Destroyed:
1) We need tighter gun control. Funny they should mention that. Brazil has very strick gun control laws, yet this massacre happened anyway. Sebastian provided a link to a summary of Brazil’s Gun Laws. Among them:
- Registration of all firearms.
- A Brazilian citizen must not have, at any given time, more than two handguns, two rifled long guns and two shotguns.
- Citizens are not allowed to buy more than one gun per year.
- Waiting periods for registration average 30 days, but in Rio de Janeiro state it could reach 3 months.
The minimum age for gun ownership in Brazil is 25 years. An applicant for a firearm license in Brazil must pass background checks which consider criminal, mental and employment records. An understanding of firearm safety and the law, tested in a theoretical and/or practical training course is required for a firearm license. Gun owners must re-apply and re-qualify for their firearm license every 3 years.
So, Did Menezes bypassed all those regulations? Nope, he simply ignored them and bought his guns from a pair of gun dealing criminals that, imagine that, also ignored the law since they were not allowed to possess guns.
2) Gun Control Reduces Murder. I am not even gonna talk much about this one. Here are the numbers:
Brazil (Brady Approved Gun Control): 23.8 homicides per 100,000 residents
USA (Brady Disapproved Gun Control): 5.4 homicides per 100,000 residents
3) High Capacity Magazines must be banned because they are lethal. Melezes used Safariland Comp III speedloaders with a capacity of 6 rounds. No evil 30 round magazines could be used with revolvers. Authorities still found over sixty spent cases at the crime scene.
4) Semi Automatic guns with Rapid Rate of Fire must be banned because they are lethal.
Menezes used two revolvers, one of them a Rossi which do not have a reputation among some gun owners as reliable (Not me, I own a Rossy snubnose in .357 and love the little sucker.) These revolvers are based in a technology over 100 years old, yet they managed to kill 12 innocents kids and wound 11 more. However rest assured that if the Antis manage to ban semi automatic handguns, they will use the Rio Massacre to point out we need Revolver Control.
5) The Armor Piercing/Cop Killing/Black Talon/Explosive/Hollow Point/Mercury/Teflon all killing bullets must be banned. Again the data is in and shows that plain old lead round nose ammunition was used. It proved quite lethal if it the round was placed in the right part of the anatomy which in the case of the shooter, he was aiming at the heads of the victims. Of course Anti Gunners will like to see those type of rounds banned, but they are not saying that, at least not yet. It makes for splashier headlines to use TEFLON or ARMOR PIERCING than round nose.
6) You do not need guns to protect yourself or anybody. Police will protect you. Two military Police officers were mere two blocks away from the school when the shooting started. They reacted immediately and by the time all the shooting was over and Menezes shot himself, barely 5 minutes had passed. 12 dead and 11 wounded demonstrate very gruesomely the fallacy of that statement. When Seconds Count, Police is Only Minutes Away is not a catchy slogan, it is a sad reality.
7) Gun Free Zones Save Lives. Twelve dead kids are an obvious contradiction to such stupid statement.
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