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Dreyfus, Pablo, and Marcelo de Sousa Nascimento. 2010 ‘Obstacles: The Regulatory Framework.’ Small Arms in Brazil: Production, Trade, and Holdings; Special Report No. 11 (Chapter 2), p. 86. Geneva: Viva Rio, ISER, and the Small Arms Survey, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. 1 September

Relevant contents

The Regulatory Framework

It was not until 1997, with the Sistema Nacional de Armas (National Firearms System, or SINARM) Act, that a national arms control system was created and a legal requirement for comprehensive registration of privately owned guns was introduced.

From then on, an individual who wished to purchase a small arm first had to obtain a registration permit from SINARM, which was administered by the federal police. Local authorities (usually the civilian investigative police) received the request and filed it with SINARM in Brasília, where criminal records were checked before the federal police authorized local authorities to grant the registration permit and register the arm.

This permit only authorized the person to keep the arm at home, however; it was not a licence to carry it.

Authorization to carry small arms was granted under separate procedures: by state authorities for carrying within state borders or by the federal police for carrying throughout the national territory.

Under the law, SINARM was required to centralize and maintain a national database of all registered and seized firearms in the country.

Each state was required to update this information periodically.

The process of digitizing local registries and linking them to SINARM via a computerized interface was painfully slow, however.

Most data on registered and seized firearms reveal underreporting (evident whenever the number of weapons registered at SINARM is lower than the number of weapons reported by states during field research for this study).

SINARM was still incomplete in 2003, when the new Disarmament Statute - which federalized and centralized control - was adopted.

[SINARM = Sistema Nacional de Armas / National Firearms System]

ID: Q3370

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