A Bull Market
Most of the guns that end up in civilian hands in Brazil are locally manufactured by Taurus, the largest, but not the only, small arms producer and manufacturer in Latin America. It’s website boasts models including the “Raging Bull Big Bore Revolver,” the “CIA” model, and a selection of hollow points bullets.
Based near Porto Alegre in the south of Brazil, the company has grown enormously since its humble start some 64 years ago. Today, thanks to exports to, and marketing and distribution in the U.S. and other countries, Taurus has grown into a considerable world player. In the U.S., each purchase of a Taurus gun comes with a free NRA membership.
No less than 33 percent of all the handguns and pistols sold in the U.S. are of Brazilian origin, according to Viva Rio, a civic organization championing a total ban of firearms.
Knowing how trigger-happy some parts of the American society are, Taurus targeted the U.S. market in the late 60s and hired American gun distributors and marketing consultants. Bangor Punta, a huge U.S. corporation purchased Smith and Wesson before picking up 54 percent of the Taurus stock. Within the Bangor Punta structure, both Smith and Wesson and Taurus remained independent companies, but exchanged methodology and technology.
Twenty three years ago, Taurus do Brasil opened a daughter company and affiliation in Miami and began mining the cowboy cache of American weapons. “That [U.S. connection] not only changed the image of the company but also made a difference in the use of handguns in this country,” says Antonio Rangel, a senior-researcher and sociologist at Rio Viva, “We see a link between establishing Taurus in the U.S. and the glamorizing the use of guns with younger people. They think it is trendy to be armed and use firearms.”
In Brazil, Taurus’s competition was the Italian arms producer Beretta, the gun of choice in many Hollywood movies and television series.
Most of Beretta’s contracts were with the Brazilian military, which was busily arming itself to defend its territory against alleged foreign intruders, to protect shaky borders, and to repress its civil population during the era of the military dictatorship from 1964 to 1984. The police too, were armed with Beretta-designed weapons.
Well known for stylish clothing and industrial design, the Italians brought their panache to the gun market as well. In 1988, when Beretta sold its interests to Taurus in Brazil, a new era of gun designing began and Taurus now features such fashion statements and pink pearl-handled revolvers with gold detailing and a 357 Magnum Gaucho model in Sundance Blue. Taurus also has introduced the infamous “9” series.
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