Police and army patrols, house searches, roadblocks and mass detentions, which El Salvador had hoped to consign to the past following the 1992 peace treaty, are fast becoming a daily occurrence throughout the country.
Rising crime, poverty and unemployment have fuelled an unprecedented outbreak of public anxiety about crime, with dramatic consequences.
In the past two weeks, 3,000 army and police troops launched operation "Safe City" in San Salvador, the nation's capital, detaining 4,300 people and recovering hundreds of weapons, including grenades and bazookas. Only a fraction of those detained were charged with any crime. President Francisco Flores gave speedy presidential approval to the "Law of Arms and Explosives" last week, a law approved by 72 votes out of 84 in parliament earlier this month. However, the new legislation, far from controlling the flow of guns into private hands, will make AK-47s and M-16s legally available to anyone aged 18 years or above.
"There is no such thing as a perfect law," he said, answering criticism of the law. "Our feeling is that perfection is the enemy of what is good and this is a good instrument for beating crime," he concluded.
In the same week the law was approved, three youths were killed, one of them beheaded, after trespassing on private property. When Salvadorean rebels handed over weapons to UN peacekeepers in 1992, in an interesting precedent for decommissioning, the event supposedly marked the end of armed violence in this nation of six million people, in which up to 60,000 died during the bitter 12-year civil war.
Salvadorean citizens enjoyed a return to constitutional guarantees after a long civil war had swept aside all legal protection. A new National Civilian Police (PNC) was set up with a quota set aside for guerrillas granted amnesty. However, the General Inspectorate for the police force received a record 300 complaints about the force last month, with members accused of involvement in "extortion, robbery, threats and abuse", according to the inspectorate itself.
The murder rate in El Salvador has climbed to 17 deaths a day, a figure which exceeds even the mortality rate during the civil war, when armed rebels came close to overthrowing the right-wing ARENA government.
The former guerrillas, grouped in the Farabundo Marti opposition coalition, voted against the new gun law, describing it as "a return to barbarity".
But before the law was even mooted, the people had quietly rearmed - a recent survey estimating that 66,000 legal weapons are held throughout the country, along with 150,000 illegally-held ones. Citizens even own surface-to-air missiles and explosives.
"An armed citizen is a safe citizen," said Mr Luis Cardenal, president of El Salvador's chamber of commerce, explaining how he had to buy a pistol for his ranch manager, who refused to work unarmed after a fourth robbery against him.
The Patriotic Movement against Delinquency (MPCD) has operated a successful programme by which repentant gun-holders can swap their weapons for food, with no questions asked. The programme came to a sudden halt last week when food funds dried up.
Salvadorean church and human rights groups have led a chorus of protest against the citizens' arms race which has divided the nation into two armed camps, criminals and vigilantes, while legislators offload responsibility for the nation's security on to anyone over 18 with the price of a gun to their name.