Many years later, as he fired a military-grade rifle at a Federal Police squad, former Congressman Roberto Jefferson was to remember that distant election during which he bragged about being an advocate for disarmament. In the early 1990s, Brazil was a very different country than it is now. But Mr. Jefferson, as we will see, was not that different a man.
Roberto Jefferson Monteiro Francisco was born in 1953 in Petrópolis, the historic city nestled in the mountains some 70 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro. The city was constructed in the 19th century by order of Emperor Dom Pedro II…