Introduction: Firearms as symbols of insurgency and modernity -- Carbines and cartridge belts : affirming one's presence -- Pistols and paredon : violent politics of affect and modernity -- Riddled by bullets : weaponry, militancy, and the people in arms as desire and enigma -- Songs of guerrilla warfare and enchatment : popularizing and legitimizing armed struggle -- Hidden arsenals : demobilized combatants and the postwar state of mind -- Golden AK-47s and weapon displays : the props of the drug war -- Epilogue: The long shadow of the rifle.