Brazil votes on deadly obsession with guns

About 120 million Brazilians go to the polls tomorrow to vote in a referendum on the sale of guns in a country which has the second highest rate of gun deaths in the world.

Nearly 39,000 people are killed with guns each year in Brazil - around 22 deaths per 100,000 people - according to Unesco. A fierce battle over the referendum entered its final stages this week, as voters pondered the question: "Should the sale of arms and ammunition be prohibited in Brazil?" Voting is compulsory for those between 18 and 70, while 16- and 17-year-olds are also eligible.

Supporters of the ban point to recent moves to curb armed violence. Following a two-year "buy back" amnesty, in which around 420,000 weapons were handed over to police, the country registered its first drop in gun deaths in more than 10 years last month. According to the health ministry, the number of deaths last year fell by 8% compared with 2003.

"There are many reasons to vote yes," said Marcelo Freixo, a human rights campaigner from Justica Global, who works with the victims of gun violence in Rio de Janeiro. "But the principal one is the need to reduce the number of homicides in Brazil and this will be possible by reducing the number of arms in circulation."

But opponents, such as Alberto Fraga, a federal deputy who is president of the Parliamentary Front for the Right to Self Defence, say a ban would have little or no effect on the levels of gun violence.

"The government measures will end up punishing the legal market, while the illegal market which feeds organised crime will not be punished," he told the BBC. Mr Fraga argues the ban would be an attack on the "citizen's fundamental rights", something that yes-voters reject.

"Sometimes in a democratic society the rights of a minority have to be limited for the greater good," said Paulo Mesquita of the Sao Paulo Anti-Violence Institute. " [The] reduction of the number of guns in circulation can only be a good thing."

For months the yes and no campaigns have been engaged in a bitter struggle in the media, with celebrities and politicians throwing their weight behind both camps.

Tear-jerking television adverts show bereaved mothers calling for a ban on the guns which took the lives of their children. Graphic photographs of gunshot wounds and corpses have been circulated on the internet by supporters of the ban.

The no camp has likened the pro-ban lobby to the Nazis on a pamphlet which reads: "Those who want disarmament, raise your right hand." It is a message that seems to be getting through. At the start of the year opinion polls showed that around 70% of Brazilians supported the ban. But last week one survey showed that 52% of those questioned would vote no.

"Because of the lack of information we knew from the start that people would go into the referendum with flexible, unfixed opinions," said Mr Mesquita. "Lots of people are still making up their minds and I think it could go either way."

Bullet points

· About 39,000 people in Brazil are killed by guns each year, or about four an hour.

· Unesco ranks Brazil second in deaths by guns, with 21.72 per 100,000 people a year. Venezuela proportionately has more, with 34.3 per 100,000, but Brazil has more in absolute numbers.

· More than one in 11 Brazilians has a gun - about 17m guns in a nation of 183 million.

· 72% of guns used in crimes in Rio de Janeiro state between 1999 and 2005 were registered to "law-abiding citizens" or to police or the armed forces and had been stolen by criminals.

· Gun-related deaths fell 8% in 2004 after a voluntary disarmament campaign.

· Police said 67% of guns used in rapes and 58% in murders were store-bought.

Sources: Unesco, Rio de Janeiro civil and state police, Rio de Janeiro state security secretariat, Institute of Religious Studies based in Rio de Janeiro.