“A gun gives the ordinary citizen courage. He thinks he is protected, but he is also really running great risk of becoming a criminal,” says police chief Nelson Silveira Guimarães of São Paulo, Brazil, speaking of the many people in the city who are carrying guns for protection. “The vast majority are not fit at all to have a gun,” adds Robinson do Prado, civil police investigator. “They are people without any emotional control to deal with situations of high tension.” It does not take much for one to lose self-control, notes the Brazilian newspaper Jornal da Tarde. “A provocation, a controversy, an uncontrolled gesture, and anyone can go from being a victim to being a murderer.”