By Declan Warrington
December 15 – The Brazilian Government has launched an initiative to reduce the number of illegal guns in circulation within the country and plans to exchange them with free tickets to the 2014 World Cup.
The plan is to reduce the number of guns in circulation within the country, and to that end a firearms amnesty will run in conjunction with the tournament.
Other proposals to be considered include exchanging signed shirts and other memorabilia for illegal firearms and the possibility that any guns recovered could be turned into goalposts at the tournament.
“We must consider the social legacy in defence of peace,” said the Brazilian MP Renan Filho.
“In Africa the theme was the fight against Aids.
Here we must spread the culture of peace and disarmament.
We are still the country that kills most with firearms.”
Brazil’s murder rate has risen 124 per cent over the past three decades, and recent atrocities – including a mass shooting at a primary school that killed 12 – has resulted in a growing disarmament and campaigners believe that the current amnesty would be boosted massively by a tie-in with the World Cup.
“Death rates from firearms are very high and we see football as something that can mobilise people,” said Cilma Azevedo of Desarma Brasil.
The FIFA general secretary, Jerome Valcke, however, has been negative about the suggestion: “There are so many guns in Brazil that we wouldn’t have a sufficient number of tickets.”
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