So this candidate has hit upon the unspeakable but obvious answer: give the good people guns.
For many, Bolsonaro has the answer to the question that has preoccupied them for years -- how to lower the crime rate in a country with more than seven murders an hour?It's an important part of the answer to the violence in Central America, too, that is producing all those refugees on our southern border.
"Give guns to good people," the former paratrooper insisted during campaign meetings.
"If one of us, a civilian or a soldier, is attacked... and if he fires 20 times at the assailant, he should be decorated and not have to go to court," the far-right candidate told a campaign meeting in the northern Rio neighborhood of Madureira in August.
It was a simple speech that hit the mark for Jamaya Beatriz, a manicurist from this violent suburb of Rio De Janeiro.
"I live in a dangerous neighborhood," the young woman said. "If someone breaks into my home, I want to be able to defend my children."
3 comments:
I had not thought of our similarity to Brazil in this matter.
As for Europe, their homicide rates went down well before their laws changed. Ethno-states, as you note.
Down Brazil way, a presidential candidate wrestles with Brazil's horrible crime rates. The USA always gets compared to Europe in terms of gun violence rates, but Brazil is a much better comparison: it's a large, American nation with a multi-ethnic population and a history of slavery, demographically much more like us than the small ethno-states of Europe. Brazil has very strict gun control, and gun violence rates that dwarf the USA's.
When the American progs or the Eurosneers get on their high horses about murderous America versus Europe, which is oh-so-superior-to-America , throw the following stats in their faces.CDC: QuickStats: Age-Adjusted Homicide Rates,*,† by Race/Ethnicity — National Vital Statistics System, United States, 2015–2016.
During 2015–2016, the age-adjusted homicide rate for the total population increased from 5.7 to 6.2 per 100,000 standard population (an 8.8% increase). The rate increased from 2.6 to 2.9 (11.5%) for non-Hispanic whites, from 20.9 to 22.8 (9.1%) for non-Hispanic blacks, and from 4.9 to 5.3 (8.2%) for Hispanics. In both years, the homicide rate for non-Hispanic blacks was approximately eight times the rate for non-Hispanic whites and four times the rate for Hispanics.
Wikipedia: List of countries by intentional homicide rate
UNODC murder rates, most recent year:Region Rate
Americas 16.3
Africa 12.5
World 6.2
Europe 3.0
Oceania 3.0
Asia 2.9
Murder rates per 100,000
Non-Hispanic White Americans 2.9
Europe 3.0
It usually shuts them up right quick.
Those of us who tend to believe that a COSA / Article V assembly to consider constitutional amendements ought to make common cause with radical liberals on some of the items of their wish list.
They want to re-write or repeal the 2nd amendment? Okay, let's talk. I want to repeal the 17th. What if we put both to a referendum?
How would it look, what would be the wording, on an explicit federal right, defined in the constitution by amendment, that secured access to abortion? None of this penumbra of emanantions garbage. What words would say a woman and a helper can cut up a unborn child and sell the pieces? Or, maybe, cutting up the child is a right but selling the pieces is forbidden? Or it's legal at 23 weeks and six days but not at 24 weeks and one hour? Or what? Call the assembly and have that discussion.
What about nullification? If a state disagrees with federal law on runaway slaves or abortion or marijuana or immigration or possession of firearms or new definitions of marriage or taking of private property for public purposes ... How should the tenth amendment be re-written to maximize freedom of US citizens, generally, to vote with their feet and find a state that suits them, without leaving the nation entirely
Term limits for judges? Revision to the electoral college? Balanced budget requirements? Abolishing the federal reserve -- or maybe explicitly ESTABLISHING the federal reserve as a constitutional 4th branch of governance? We have an accumulation of stuff that is not well defined or simply and explicitly laid out, that probably should NOT be in the constitution, that DOES need to be discussed and spelled out. It seems to me half of our internal conflicts arise because we don't know what we're talking about.
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