On 19 June authorities confirmed that a student had been killed during a school shooting in Cambé municipality, Paraná state, in the south of Brazil.
Analysis:
This latest incident marks the fifth high-profile school attack since the government led by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office in January and will renew concerns about public security. While President Lula tweeted his condolences to the victim’s family and school community, the justice & public security minister, Flávio Dino, used his message of condolence to call for tighter regulation of social media, which he considers a major contributor to the spread of hate speech and violence. However, he did not explicitly push for approval of the government’s proposed legislation for online regulation, commonly known as the ‘fake news’ bill, which is currently stalled in the lower house of congress.
- Paraná’s governor, Carlos Massa Ratinho Junior, confirmed that the shooting took place in Colégio Estadual Helena Kolody, a state school in Cambé. One student, aged 17, was killed. Another, aged 16, was wounded and has been taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Londrina.
- A former student at the school, the perpetrator was restrained by a teacher before state police forces arrived and is now in custody in Londrina.
- According to a report by the NGO Instituto Sou da Paz, there have been 46 victims killed in school attacks since 2002 while firearms accounted for 76% of the killings. This has led the director of Instituto Sou da Paz, Carolina Ricardo, to call for tighter gun control, stating that “the accessibility of guns at home favours this type of crime and increases the lethality.”
- Under Brazil’s current gun ownership laws, the minimum age to purchase a firearm is 25, but residents in rural zones (without a police station within 50km) are allowed to own guns at age 21. Under the right-wing former president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2023), gun control was relaxed, and individuals were allowed to own up to six guns. After taking office in January, President Lula signed a decree which decreased this limit to three firearms.
Looking Ahead: The justice & public security ministry has said that it will continue ‘Operation Escola Segura’, launched in April, an initiative which involves monitoring online platforms for content which might encourage violence.
