The silent, impoverished majority of Brazil is increasingly finding itself stuck in the middle of a war that claims the lives of over 100 Brazilians per day. This week, human rights group Amnesty International released a scathing 30-page report detailing the ineptitude, corruption, and disregard for procedures that categorizes the Brazilian police forces. For those residents of Brazil’s infamous favelas?impoverished urban settlements?life is void of security and hope (WAR Report). Residents find themselves trapped in the crossfire of criminal gang units and the Brazilian police forces, which ?come in shooting,? unconcerned of whom they may kill in the process. With no one to turn to for protection many communities are turning inward and have begun to enforce their own laws and provide for their own protection. However, when communities are forced to provide services, which should be the job of local and national governments, the situation frequently deteriorates from bad to worse.

In October 2005, the people of Brazil took part in a landmark referendum on outlawing the sale of firearms and ammunition (WAR Report). Brazilians overwhelming defeated the referendum, insisting on their right to bear arms. Many in the international community were baffled by their decision. No one could understand why a nation that is infested with small arms, which accounted for 50,000 homicides in 2002, could vote to continue the sale of firearms. Based on Amnesty International’s report, entitled ?They come in shooting?, doubts quickly vanish. Pleas for help and security from the residents of Brazil?s favelas have long fallen on deaf ears. When security forces enter these areas, they often come in with guns blazing, unconcerned with who they are shooting at. Such was the case in March 2005 when a detachment of Brazilian military police officers entered the Baixada Fluminense district of Rio de Janeiro. Some 22 people were killed that day, including children who were traveling home from school.