Who are WG members and how they think about gun control

The Ministry of Justice and Public Security set up, last Friday (3), a Working Group (GT) to promote a restructuring of gun control policies in the country. The determination was signed by Minister Flávio Dino (PSB) and meets the disarmament policy announced by President Lula (PT).

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The group’s objective will be to discuss new regulations for Law 10.826/2003, known as the Disarmament Statute. On the first day of his government, Lula issued a very restrictive decree on gun control. According to the president, the measure would be temporary until the new regulations of the Disarmament Statute come into force.

The group’s coordinator, Tadeu Alencar (PSB-PE), who is a former federal deputy and current National Secretary of Public Security, informed that the work will have a period of 60 days, extendable for another 60, and the first meeting will be scheduled ” soon” to present a work plan. “We are going to have a lot of dialogue and listen to all aspects that have a responsible contribution to make on such a sensitive matter. This is the first and one of the main tasks of the group”, he said.

The WG has eight members and eight alternates, among government representatives – ministries of Justice, Defense and Finance and the Union’s Attorney General (AGU) –, the Federal Police (PF), the National Council of Justice (CNJ), the National Council of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (CNMP) and non-profit institutions opposed to armament.

Among the holders who will join the group, the majority is politically aligned to the left and is against the easing of gun ownership and carrying. See below who are the members of the working group:

Tadeu Alencar

The group’s coordinator, Tadeu Alencar collects a series of statements against policies to make access to guns more flexible, which he has already classified as “absurd”. According to the secretary, making the possession and carrying of firearms more flexible has an impact on an increase in violence rates. “The flexibilization policy multiplied the weapons in circulation in society, part of them through mechanisms called CACs (Collectors, Sport Shooters and Hunters), which served to distribute weapons throughout society”, said the secretary in an interview with Radio Jornal.

In 2019, Alencar was part of the group of parliamentarians that filed a Direct Action of Unconstitutionality (ADI) in the Federal Supreme Court against the decrees on firearms of the government of former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL). In the action, the parliamentarians maintained that the contested decrees were incompatible with the system of control and inspection of weapons established by the Statute of Disarmament.

On social media, the former deputy celebrated Minister Rosa Weber’s decision to suspend parts of Bolsonaro’s decrees on weapons. “A victory for the Brazilian people and for the culture of peace,” he said.

Regarding the disarmament policies promised by Lula since the election campaign, the former deputy declared that “there will be no restrictive measure of law, but a new policy, an arms control, mainly of large caliber, so that there is no flexibility in the acquisition, because part of that equipment ends up falling into organized crime”.

Rodrigo de Melo

Delegate Rodrigo de Melo Teixeira is the representative of the Federal Police in the group. He joined the PF in 1999, has already headed the Police Station for the Repression of Trafficking in Narcotics, served in the Nucleus for Combating Financial Crimes, and held the position of corregidor and regional delegate in Minas Gerais. Currently director of the Administrative Police, Teixeira was quoted for the position of executive director of the PF in December last year

The delegate was the Federal Police superintendent in Minas Gerais in 2018, when Bolsonaro was stabbed by Adélio Bispo. The former president made several criticisms of the investigation of the case and even said that the delegate of the case acted “in part as a defense of the criminal”. In response, Teixeira defended that the steps were being conducted in a technical and impartial manner.

Since the publication of Law No. 10,826/03 (Disarmament Statute), the Federal Police has been the body responsible for controlling the possession and possession of firearms by the civilian population, which makes the federal police central actors in the discussion.

In an ordinance published on the 1st of February, the PT government passed the responsibility for granting registration and authorization for the acquisition of weapons for CACs, which formerly belonged to the Army, to the Federal Police. All weapons for permitted and restricted use acquired after May 2019 must be re-registered in the PF system, the National Weapons System (Sinarm), within 60 days from the publication of the ordinance.

Jaime de Cassio Miranda

Military prosecutor Jaime de Cassio Miranda, from the National Council of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (CNMP), is one of the members of the WG. He has a 23-year career in the Public Ministry and was Attorney General of Military Justice between 2016 and 2020, the year in which he was invited by the Attorney General of the Republic, Augusto Aras, to be the Secretary General of the CNMP.

He currently holds the position of chairman of the Commission for the Prison System, External Control of Police Activity and Public Security of the CNMP. In 2010, when he was a Military Justice prosecutor, he was assigned to accompany the Military Police Inquiry to investigate the disappearance of war material that was in the possession of Brazilian military personnel on January 12, when an earthquake devastated Haiti.

Felipe Angeli

Lawyer Felippe Angeli, advocacy manager at the Sou da Paz institute, is part of the group representing non-profit institutions. Openly opposed to the flexibilization of arms, the NGO that Angeli is part of emerged from a campaign to collect and destroy weapons launched by a group of students in 1997. The organization worked for the approval and implementation of the Disarmament Statute and is in favor of a international arms control treaty. The NGO carried out a series of campaigns and actions against the armament policy implemented during the Bolsonaro government.

The Sou da Paz institute has already received millionaire contributions from billionaire George Soros, who finances dozens of entities aligned to the left in Brazil.

Michele dos Ramos

The advocacy manager at the Igarapé Institute, Michele dos Ramos, who monitors public safety and criminal justice guidelines, will be an alternate in the vacancy for the Ministry of Justice. The NGO Instituto Igarapé, which has as one of its main focuses the defense of the decriminalization of drugs, has also received millionaire contributions from George Soros.

The alternate in the space for non-profit institutions in the working group is Carolina Valladares, who is also a member of the Igarapé Institute.

Achilles Jacinto Filho

Army Colonel Achiles Santos Jacinto Filho is part of the group as a representative of the Ministry of Defense. He was a former representative of the Army’s Military Weapons Management System (Sigma) and Director of Controlled Products for the Army.

In a hearing held in the Chamber of Deputies, in 2011, on gun control in Brazil, the colonel defended more restrictive measures, but guaranteed that the Army was capable of accompanying the life cycle of a weapon, step by step, from the factory. “There is no way to transfer weapons without our authorization,” he declared.

At the time, the colonel defended more training of personnel to increase the effectiveness of inspections carried out by the Army and intensify inspection.

Other Working Group Members

As the main representative of the Ministry of Finance, the WG has Maria Laís do Socorro Chaves, who was once head of the Division of Technological and Operational Resources of the Special Secretariat of the Federal Revenue.

Judge and advisor Giovanni Olsson will represent the National Council of Justice (CNJ) in the group. Master and doctor, he joined the judiciary in 1996 and is currently a judge at the Regional Labor Court (TRT) in Chapecó (SC).

Representing the Attorney General’s Office (AGU) is lawyer Fernando Albuquerque Faria, director of the AGU’s Normative Act Analysis Department. He has served as deputy attorney general of the Union between 2008 and 2012.

The WG alternates are:

• Newton Cabral de Albuquerque (Ministry of Finance);
• Michele dos Ramos (Ministry of Justice);
• Lieutenant Marcelo Miyoshi (Ministry of Defense);
• Delegate Carlos Henrique Maia (PF);
• Marcelo Schettini Seabra (CNJ);
• Angelo Fabiano Farias (CNMP);
• Anderson Claudino (AGU);
• Carolina Valladares (Non-profit institutions)