Your Privacy Choices
In what appears to be a never-ending TFB series on weapons used by criminals in Rio de Janeiro, I’ve brought some recent pictures covering that, mainly motivated by the featured image, above. This photo has circulated in the social media, reportedly by a gang operating in Copacabana’s Vidigal Hill community, apparently as an intimidating visual message to other gangs trying to assume control of that area. The variety of firearm models available is noteworthy, and some examples are focused below. Readers are most welcome to comment, please. Hrachya included!
A trio of AK platforms (l-to-r): a short-barrel member with a side-folding stock; a standard-barrel specimen fitted with a 75-rd drum-magazine, with the fixed wooden stock and handguard wrapped in rubber bands; and a somewhat decorated (possibly, Romanian MD-63) example, also with a drum magazine.
With two 7.62x51mm rifles (a scoped G3 and a FAL full of handguard rails) in the background, some different AR-15 platforms with varied barrel lengths share the space with another shorty AK (apparently, stockless) with a drum magazine is seen here.
The .50 BMG bolt-action rifle with a 5-rd side-mounted magazine seen here is one of several Safety Harbor Firearms guns that have found their way to criminal hands in Brazil. These basically consist of an upper in that caliber added to a standard AR-15 lower.
Also from left to right: a 7.62x51mm G3; a similarly-chambered, scoped AR-10 (?); an AR-15 platform with a very short barrel; a short AK with a drum magazine and unusual wooden thumbhole stock and handguard; and a 7.62x51mm FAL with green pistol grip and handguard.
The two guns in the foreground are an AR-type with what appears to be a ventilated shrouded barrel and a tan-furniture (Series 100?) AK fitted with a scope and drum magazine, while those in the background are a stockless (they love that!) and somewhat dilapidated AK (handguard suggests a Hungarian AMD-63) beside an average AR.
Slightly higher-res pics here: https://imgur.com/a/rYusA
