Brazil’s new leader Jair Bolsonaro has a solution for world’s most murderous country: relax gun laws
- Jair Bolsonaro says it’s time to abandon ‘politically correct fallacy’ about guns, in first TV interview since election
Brazil’s far-right, pro-gun president-elect has signalled he would seek to relax his country’s firearms laws in a bid to combat a homicide epidemic that last year claimed nearly 64,000 lives.
In his first television interview since being elected on Sunday, former army captain Jair Bolsonaro said it was time to abandon what he called the “politically correct fallacy” that Brazil would be a safer place if everybody was unarmed.
“It won’t be any better. If there were three or four armed people here now, I’d be certain that some nutter wouldn’t be able to come in through that door and do something bad,” the right-wing populist told his interviewer from Record, a television channel owned by one of his powerful supporters.
In the 30-minute interview, Bolsonaro – whose sons and supporters are often seen sporting clothing or hats celebrating automatic weapons and the National Rifle Association – said he believed gun laws should be made more flexible.
“I ask myself: ‘Why can’t a truck driver have the right to carry a gun?’” he said.
“Just think about it; put yourself in the shoes of a truck driver. He nods off at the petrol station … and when he wakes up the next day his spare tyre has gone.”