LONDON -- Last Sunday in Brazil, a country with the second-highest rate of gun deaths on the planet, almost two-thirds of Brazilians voted against a total ban on the sale of firearms. Explain that.
Brazil loses 38,000 people a year in gun-related killings. That is twice as bad as the United States, generally regarded as the industry leader in these matters: the U.S. has one and a half times Brazil's population, but only 30,000 Americans are shot to death each year. In Brazil, just being on the street can be fatal, with thousands of innocent people killed in the cross fire each year as rival gangs fight for control of the drug trade. And yet Brazilians voted to keep the sale of guns legal.
Part of the answer was a ruthless media campaign by the local gun lobby that exploited the free television time both sides are granted in Brazilian referendums. They hijacked Nelson Mandela's image and claimed he opposed gun control (until his lawyers made them stop). They compared pro-ban advocates to Nazis. They translated reams of propaganda from the National Rifle Association in the U.S. and pumped it out over the air unaltered, with the result that millions of Brazilians now believe they have a constitutional right to bear arms. (They don't.)