FAQ: How does an AK-47 end up in a favela?

Originally written and published by Romário Regis, this text breaks down how weapons, organized crime, and the production chain of violence keep feeding each other — ensuring that conflicts persist and nothing ever really changes.

1.
Think of an AK-47.
Now think of an AK-47 in a favela.
An AK-47 costs 60,000 reais.
R$60,000.

Brazil doesn’t manufacture AK-47s — and even so, the weapons produced in Brazil cannot be bought at a convenience store.

3.
For a weapon to arrive in a favela,
it must go through a long journey with many people involved — participants and partners.

You don’t buy a rifle or a pistol on ebay.

For an AK-47 to reach a favela, it must be imported illegally.
Someone has to bring it in through air or sea transport — and we all know that favelas don’t control Brazil’s nautical or aerial markets.

4.
For an AK-47 to reach a favela,
someone from the federal police must earn some money to let shipments enter the Brazilian border and travel across the country’s highways to reach states like Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

For an AK-47 to reach a favela,
the state police forces of those states must also earn some money for letting that cargo through.

For an AK-47 to reach a favela,
some part of the state government must be complicit in allowing these weapons to arrive in the favela.

5.
And then it happens:
the AK-47 arrives, and young people with no training end up armed with a powerful weapon. They take the blame for an entire production chain of arms trafficking that they can’t even begin to understand.

And it goes further.

When there’s a shootout in the favela or on the street, the blame isn’t only on the one holding the gun, but on the entire production chain that made that weapon end up in their hands.

The guilt runs from the person who pulls the trigger to the one who transports the ammo by sea or accepts a bribe at a roadside checkpoint somewhere along Brazil’s highways.

6.
And it’s not just the “criminal shooter.”
There’s the congressman.
There’s the governor.
There’s the arms company.
There’s a bunch of people who “shouldn’t be mentioned.”

7.
A gunshot is like a Genki Dama  of people involved.

Whether you support or oppose the Disarmament Statute,
whether you agree or not that “a good criminal is a dead criminal,”
it’s important to understand:

A gun on the street involves dozens of people.

8.
If a “good criminal is a dead criminal,”
then your list should also include the owners of gun manufacturing companies
who profit millions of dollars and reais from weapons that end up sold informally.

9.
The police officer is the least responsible in this entire productive chain —
just as the gangster exchanging gunfire in flip-flops in the favela understands less than 5% of what’s really involved.

The guilty ones are others —
but we insist on reducing everything to the Wagner Montes-style notion
that the only one to blame is the one who shoots.

Everyone’s to blame.
Between the one who fires and the one who manufactures the gun,
there are so many people involved that not even The Walking Dead could come up with that many characters.