Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, signed a temporary decree on Tuesday fulfilling a campaign promise to tackle the country’s epidemic of violence by making it easier for Brazilians to buy guns. “I signed this decree, created by many upstanding people, so that at this first moment, upstanding citizens can have peace inside their homes,” Bolsonaro said at the signing ceremony in the country’s capital, Brasília. Bolsonaro, a conservative former Army captain, was sworn in as president on Jan. 1 after sweeping to power last year on a hard-line law-and-order platform, pledging to reduce the countrys record murder rate and booming trade in illegal drugs that fuels it. On the main highway leading into Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s Federal Highway Patrol or PRF say they’re confiscating record numbers of illegal guns and drugs. The officers patrolling the road seized 18 tons of drugs last year — a more than a 300-percent increase from the year before. “It's a traditional route for drug traffickers - not just for drugs, but also heavy arms,” Alcino Galvao da Silva, Unit Leader of the Federal Highway Patrol, told VICE News. “Machine guns, bullets, marijuana, and cocaine… It has grown quite a bit, especially in Rio de Janeiro.” “Johnny,” as he asked VICE News to call him, has been dealing drugs for the Third Command drug gang since he was 16 years-old. Now at 28 he manages all the drugs corners in the neighborhood and isn’t afraid to defend them by force. “I can tell you that today I've got 35 homicides,” “Johnny” told VICE News. “Fear? We don't have fear. That's what we're here for. To kill and die. We'll die, but die fighting. It's our war motto: Die fighting.” Bolsonaros plan to “give guns to good people,” and ramp up the military’s role by giving security forces more power to shoot and kill armed criminals isn’t getting the drug gangs to drop their guns. Third Command says their stockpilling weapons of war. “He’s going to take the world into an urban war,” “Johnny” told VICE News. “Instead of us killing the Red Command we’re going to go after the guy who is in the police who listened to one of Bolsonaro's orders.” Subscribe to VICE News here: http://bit.ly/Subscribe-to-VICE-News Check out VICE News for more: http://vicenews.com Follow VICE News here: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vicenews Twitter: https://twitter.com/vicenews Tumblr: http://vicenews.tumblr.com/ Instagram: http://instagram.com/vicenews More videos from the VICE network: https://www.fb.com/vicevideo

MS-13 is one of the most dangerous gangs in Central America. In El Salvador, almost one out of every 10 people is involved in gangs and criminal activity. The gangs are well-armed but where are they getting their weapons? Correspondent Mike Kirsch went to San Salvador looking for answers.  Watch CGTN LIVE on your computer, tablet or mobile http://america.cgtn.com/livenews Subscribe to CGTN America on YouTube Follow CGTN America: Twitter: @cgtnamerica Facebook: @cgtnamerica Instagram: @cgtnamerica TikTok: @cgtnamerica

America's Guns: Over 70% of the guns seized from Mexican cartels originate in US stores and were smuggled south over the border. How can this weapons trafficking be controlled – and does the US even want to? Subscribe to Journeyman here: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=journeymanpictures “There are over 5,000 unidentified bodies kept in Tamaulipas, found in mass graves”, says Guillermo, who leads the struggle to identify the vanished people of the Mexican border state. “These are the results of a kind of civil war with no end in sight.” Since 2004, there have been over 150,000 deaths in Mexico’s so-called War on Drugs, most enabled by illegal firearms. Despite stringent regulations, the cartels’ firepower invariably outmatches that of the police. “They have better weapons than we do, with more magazines of ammo”, says one officer. The paperwork needed to buy guns on Texan soil is easily forged, and private sales are even more lax. The trafficking itself is barely controlled, and there is no targeted federal law to punish offenders – the US is far more concerned with the influx of drugs. The long arm of the cartels often means that the border guards turn a blind eye to smuggling for their own safety. “If you don’t play along, they'll just kill you”, says one ex-cartel member. “If you are working at customs, you’re almost certainly getting kickbacks. And if you’re not, you’ll be killed.” For more information, visit https://www.journeyman.tv/film/7432 Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/journeymanpictures Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JourneymanNews https://twitter.com/JourneymanVOD Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/journeymanpictures Visit our subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/JourneymanPictures/ Say hi on tumblr: https://journeymanpictures.tumblr.com/ Al Jazeera – Ref. 7432

Maduro's reelection comes at a time of deepening economic crisis and rising crime. Our Latin America correspondent Ediz Tiyansan reports from Caracas.

Brazil's Pacification Program was designed to decrease violence ahead of the 2014 World Cup and Olympics. But with the games gone, violent crimes are up 24% as gangs regain control of Rio's favelas. VICE Correspondent Ben Anderson returns to Rio to see what happened. Watch it Friday at 7:30 PM and 11 PM on HBO. Subscribe to VICE News here: http://bit.ly/Subscribe-to-VICE-News Check out VICE News for more: http://vicenews.com Follow VICE News here: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vicenews Twitter: https://twitter.com/vicenews Tumblr: http://vicenews.tumblr.com/ Instagram: http://instagram.com/vicenews More videos from the VICE network: https://www.fb.com/vicevideo #VICEonHBO