The gesture of the thumb and forefinger has at this time in Brazil two antagonistic meanings. If they show themselves with their fingers pointing up, as many have done at the exit of the polling station, they report on the sympathy with Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. But if you simulate the use of a gun There is no doubt that the empathy is with Jair Bolsonaro and his adherence to a culture of violence, which can be just symbolic or material.
In fact, on the eve of the elections, former far-right deputy Roberto Jefferson was at the center of a shootout. He fired 20 rifle cartridges and two grenades at a police car. Just before the opening of the polls, Bolsonaro deputy Carla Zambelli also went from gesture to act and persecuted a Lula supporter at revolver point down a street in the city of Sao Paulo.
These episodes achieved visibility because the attackers were public figures. However, they are no longer an exception in a country where Bolsonaro has made access to weapons more flexible. Over a million guns have been purchased legally in recent years. Part of those who have acquired them presented themselves as hunters, shooters and collectors.
Increase in arms imports
According to the magazine ‘Piaui’, between 1997 and 2018, the year the retired captain came to power, Brazil imported 120,400 revolvers and pistols. Starting with the far-right government, not only the thumb and index finger of its leader became a state emblem, but in an incitement to acquire supplies: 441,000 imports were registered between January 2019 and August of this year. Starting in July, even greater growth in purchases began to be detected. The last month a maximum peak was computed.
As the elections have gotten closer, and in the midst of the growing threats from the president From questioning the results of the polls, the question of the use of weapons has undergone a change that puts the Brazilian ultra-right in greater harmony with the North American. It has gone, in social networks, from a cult of the pistol and not only as a means of defending oneself against a potential criminal, but as a concrete possibility of attack a political opponent.
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