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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 3:34 am
Time: 3:34 am
Results for gun violence (portugal)
1 results foundAuthor: Peace Studies Group Title: Violence and Small Arms: The Portuguese Case Summary: This issue presents some of the results of the research project “Violence and small arms: the Portuguese case”, which was developed during 30 months, from 2007 to 2010. The idea which gave rise to the project was that the theoretical segmentation between Sociology and International Relations regarding this theme, which expressed an understanding of violence that over-emphasised territorial scale and formal political contexts, should be replaced by a different approach which gives analytical priority to the spiral of violences that put micro and macro social in contact, hence, detaching its analysis from the redactor dichotomy war/peace. We believe that through this different approach can one rigorously analyse the different dimensions of the social reality of firearms violence in formal peace contexts, regardless of their lethal capacity or of their most visible expressions. Our challenge was precisely to question conventional assumptions of conventional studies on small arms. The explicit lack of synchrony between common sense and scientific knowledge has enabled Portuguese society to get in contact with the small arms reality, based on images and representations constructed on the existing ignorance on the dimensions and real complexity of the phenomena. Two elements have been supporting discourses and policies: on one hand, the idea that we live in a peaceful country, and on the other hand, the social fear waves triggered by individual armed urban violence events. These two elements either minimalise the effective importance – quantitative and qualitative - of small arms in Portugal, or assume a reactive and immediate response in face of social unrest. The invisibility of firearms in Portugal – as well as its circumstantial hypervisibility in the media – fail to give an adequate answer to the focus of the phenomena: the four main dimensions of the phenomena in Portugal. Firstly, small arms supply: how many legal small arms are there in Portugal? Based on international knowledge and experience, how can we estimate illegal small arms in Portugal? Which flows fuel both markets? Secondly, small arms demand: what kind of motivations support firearms contact, use and possession in Portugal? Are there differences across distinctive groups of population (men and women, youth and adults, etc.)? Thirdly, what are the impacts of small arms in Portugal? Which costs do firearms imply for the Portuguese economy and society? Who are the direct victims (the dead and the injured) and the indirect victims (the survival, victims relatives) of armed violence in our country? Finally, what kind of public policies, national or international, have been implemented to regulate small arms? To what extent have they succeeded regarding prevention of gun violence and regulation of small arms use and possession? Which forms of social activism have proven efficient in the creation of preventive and reactive contra-cultures in armed violence contexts? Details: Coimbra, Portugal: Peace Studies Group, 2010. 25p. Source: Internet Resource: PAX Online Bulletin No. 15: Accessed May 23, 2011 at: http://www.ces.uc.pt/nucleos/nep/media/Pax15-en.pdf Year: 2010 Country: Portugal URL: http://www.ces.uc.pt/nucleos/nep/media/Pax15-en.pdf Shelf Number: 121780 Keywords: Domestic ViolenceGun Violence (Portugal)GunsHomicides |