Lula wants to close shooting clubs and keep them only for police organizations

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) said, this Tuesday morning (25), that he told Minister Flávio Dino, of Justice, to “close almost all” shooting clubs in the country, in the wake of the decree released last Friday (21) to restrict access to guns by individuals.

The statement was given during the live “Conversation with the President”, broadcast earlier and which had peaks of 4,700 people watching simultaneously.

“I already told Flávio Dino that we have to close almost all [os clubes de tiro], only leave open those who are from the Military Police, the Army or the Civil Police. It is a police organization that has to have a place to shoot, to train in shooting. It is not Brazilian society. We are not preparing a revolution. They tried to strike, we didn’t. We want to prepare democracy, strengthen democracy,” he said.

Lula stated that there was “confusion” as to whether or not he could allow the population access to weapons, mainly 9mm pistols, which the president questioned “what he [o cidadão] will do? Play shooting?”

He also criticized the flexibility allowed by former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) in decrees of the past government, stating that the release was “to please organized crime”, because the “poor worker is not even able to buy food, school supplies”. “How are people who work going to be able to buy a rifle, a pistol?”, He completed in the questions.

The new restrictive decree on weapons, published last Friday (21), determines, among other parts, that the supervision of CACs (hunters, shooters and collectors) passes from the Army to the Federal Police, an act that can be challenged in court, according to analysts and parliamentarians heard by the People’s Gazette.

The decree undid the main changes added by the previous government to the sector and made it impossible to grant new registrations for shooters and purchase certain types of weapons that were previously acquired normally.