#Brazil

Previously I wrote about the gun culture of  Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and the Philippines. While all those places are fascinating, they seem a bit too exotic for a US gun owner. In the conversation about gun laws, US politicians like to use examples of Australia, and the UK, but often ignore countries that are more similar to the USA and even closer to it geographically - the countries of South America. Today, Brazil is the biggest and most populated South American country, with over 212,000,000 citizens. Like the US, it has a notable problem with gangs and violent crime, and it consists of different states and has a diverse population. Brazil's size and demographics are pretty similar to those of the US. What can we learn from Brazil’s experience regarding gun laws? Apparently, a lot, because in recent years, Brazil's government unintentionally conducted one of the biggest social experiments related to gun laws in the history of mankind.

A new dawn, new possibilities and another Photo Of The Day. Above you see Segundo-tenente fuzileiro naval (Brazilian Marine Corps 2nd Lieutenant) Baluino with 1st Batalhão de Infantaria, Pelotão de Reconhecimento e Vigilância (1st Infantry Battalion, Recon Platoon) as he fires his weapon during a course of fire at the Base de Fuzileiros Navais da Ilha do Governador, Brazil, (Brazilian Marine Corps Base on the Ilha do Governador) during a scout sniper assessment on June 22, 2023.

Brazil’s Sal Paulo Civilian Police have just selected a new submachine gun along with all of its cool bells and whistles for its latest addition to the law enforcement agency’s arsenal. The B&T APC9-G PRO 9mm submachine gun will allow officers complete magazine compatibility between current service pistols as well as the 700 new submachine guns that the agency has purchased from B&T USA. This is B&T USA’s second contract in recent memory with the country of Brazil with B&T previously fulfilling a contract for the APC40 to the country’s Polícia Militar (military police).

Photo Of The Day and we have probably the first images (on TFB) of Brazilian & Ecuadorian Marines. Above you see a Brazilian Marine providing security during an amphibious landing. This happened during an exercise called UNITAS LXIII in Itaoca, Brazil.

Every day we run an article called Photo Of The Day with some of the coolest pictures from the world of firearms. Today we have images from Fuerzas Comando 2022 on offer, with Brazilian snipers.

Viva Italia! Brazilian Law Enforcement agencies have ordered up to 159,000 units of Beretta’s APX striker-fired semi-automatic pistol. The pistol is going to be used by the National Public Security Force and the regional police forces of several of Brazil’s 26 states. The contract between Beretta and the Brazilian Ministry of Justice will last over 18 months, with a commitment from Beretta to supply up to 159,000 pistols for a maximum value of 57 million Euros (roughly $69 million USD).

B&T made waves when they won the U.S. Army contract back in 2019. Now, it appears their list of contracts is expanding all the way down to Brazil. The Sao Paulo Military Police have just announced their adoption of the B&T APC40 PRO. Details from the press release below:

Brazil’s Military Police of São Paulo State (PMESP) have selected the Steyr AUG in its submachine gun configuration to fulfil an order for 1,000 submachine guns. The Steyr AUG A3 in submachine gun configuration, feeding from a .40 caliber extended Glock magazines was the winning bidder for the contract. The Steyr beat out competition from B&T and Shield Arms. In the negotiation phase, Steyr offered the lowest final bid, $2,580 per weapon.

Continuing the Underground Arms Watch series, here are a number of black market made and modified firearms which have recently surfaced. First up, here are three corpses of what were once guns which were seized in Zimbabwe earlier in the month.

Catching up with police seizures from mid-February onward, March’s look into improvised and modified firearms circulating the criminal underworld begins.

Welcome to another installment of Underground Arms Watch series where we take a look at criminally made and modified firearms seized throughout the world.

In this article, we’ll present to you the first part of Underground Arms Watch December edition’s look into notable seizures of criminally manufactured and modified weapons seized off the streets. Read last month’s post here.

According to sources in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, and the Associated Press, a hostage situation unfolded inside a bus on an 8 mile-long bridge around 5:30am on August 20.  The perpetrator was said to be armed with an unspecified gun, a knife and a lighter.  The man held about 37 people hostage for four hours.  During that time, the hostage taker bound people’s wrists with zip ties, doused the bus with gasoline and strung up open containers of gas within the bus.

World news outlets are reporting that GLOCK has won a Brazilian contract to supply the São Paulo Military Police (SP MP) with thousands of new pistols. The article below mentions 40,000 guns, but there is conflicting information between various news sources making the actual number unclear.

Here is an interesting design which has been seized by authorities on a number of occasions in the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo, first documented in August 2017. It is an eight-shot pump-actuated revolving shotgun chambered in 12 gauge and represents the cutting edge in Favela Firepower.