Despite Lula’s Campaign Promises, the Number of Licensed Firearm Owners in Brazil Increased by 25% Between 2022 and 2025

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva didn’t do quite what he promised. Lula took office in January 2023 with the promise to radically change the gun control policies from Bolsonaro. While he reduced the number of new firearm licenses, so the growth rate in the number of licensed owners increased at a slower rate, it still increased. In 2022, there were 783,385 licensed firearm owners. Total active reached ~980,000 by mid-2025. But one thing that Lula did was reduce the number of guns that people could use for self-defense from four guns to two guns, though that change won’t prevent people from having a gun for self-defense. The CRAF licenses (Regular Civilian Owners (Posse for Defesa Pessoal)) last for 5 years. The CAC licenses (Caçadores / Atiradores / Colecionadores) go from 3 to 10 years. All CAC owners have CRAFs (one per gun), but not all CRAF holders are CACs. So the number of licensed gun owners may start to decline in 2027 and 2028, but that hasn’t happened yet.