A professor of anthropology from Dartmouth College claims the mere presence of a gun, especially if one makes physical contact with it, can transform a good person into a bad one. Chelsey Kivland, who studies “street politics, insecurity, and social performance in contemporary urban Haiti,” makes use of an anecdote from that country in the Pacific Standard to establish a larger point about firearms: Three individuals who had owned a certain Smith & Wesson .38 Special all ended up being shot and killed … and not by that particular gun. Community members attributed the deaths to “maji” — magic —...