Brazil: From Brazil's violence-plagued slums to the guarded enclaves of the rich, people voted yesterday on whether to ban guns sales in the country with the world's highest death toll from firearms.
Surveys released before the referendum indicated they would reject the ban despite the fact that some 36,000 people were killed by guns last year in Brazil, and where violent crime are a daily concern for many citizens.
In debates leading up to the vote, many people worried that a ban would leave them defenceless against heavily-armed criminals. Public confidence is low in a police force widely seen as inefficient and corrupt.
"This referendum will not solve anything; it is not going to end violence," said Assis Augusto Pires (60), an engineer, who voted in Sao Paulo's wealthy Jardim Paulistano district where residents live behind high walls and private security men guard the streets. "I don't think that anybody in this country really trusts the police."
In Rio de Janeiro's Rocinha shanty town, where a gangland turf war has raged over the past year, electrician Carlos Eduardo Ferreira (40) said he would vote for the ban. "I am for the ban, I am for life. I've already seen kids hit by bullets here."
Spotlighting the issue, a young girl was wounded by a stray bullet as police clashed with drug traffickers in Rio de Janeiro's Dende slum on Saturday night.
In Minas Gerais state a supporter of gun sales shot and wounded a person who backed the ban in a bar on Friday.
Supporters and opponents waged intense campaigns before the referendum, in which 122 million people are expected to vote. Voting is compulsory.
Initial surveys had shown most people in favour of the ban, but recent polls swung the other way.
Pro-ban groups accused the arms industry of funding a big anti-ban campaign and manipulating people's fears.
If the vote approves the ban, all sales of guns and ammunition will halt, although police, security firms and several other groups will be able to buy them.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his wife, Marisa Leticia, casting their ballots in the industrial city of Sao Bernardo do Campo, both voted for the ban.
Parliamentarian Alberto Fraga, head of an anti-ban lobby group, said the No vote represented a protest.
"The government has done nothing to improve the public security situation," Mr Fraga said in the capital, Brasilia.
Violence is rampant throughout Brazil, from the cities to the Amazon jungle. Drugs gangs control Rio's slums - one area is called the Gaza Strip because of the frequent clashes.
Delinquents are often dealt with by hired vigilantes called "justiceiros", and in the vast interior land disputes and other scores are settled by hired gunmen known as "pistoleiros".
Unesco rates Brazil second in the world behind Venezuela proportionally in deaths by guns, with nearly 22 per 100,000 people.
- (Reuters)