Then he told me to look at something else. He opened his satchel and pulled out a small pistol. I had a sudden, urgent desire to be anywhere else. I pitched my pack into a taxi that somehow materialized in front of me, and I told the driver to take off. Then I asked him if it was common for people to carry around weapons in the city.
Many people carry little guns.
There are many thieves here, ever since the war. The people feel safer with the guns. Behind me, shrinking on the curb, Mr. Special Forces looked almost hurt at my sudden departure. In the early 1980s the United States trained Central American commandos in guerilla and torture tactics, then set these terrorists loose on their own people. Anybody with ties to the US Special Forces who operated in El Salvador in the 1980s probably killed a LOT of people in some particularly gruesome ways.