Mexico Vigilantes
Armed men belonging to the Self-Defense Council of Michoacan, (CAM), stands guard at checkpoint at the entrance of Antunez, Mexico, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2014. The Mexican government moved in to quell violence between vigilantes and a drug cartel, and witnesses say several unarmed civilians were killed in an early Tuesday confrontation. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

As we reported earlier, Mexico is in the throes of a revolution. Thousands of so-called “vigilantes” have taken control of areas of extreme lawlessness, rejecting the federal government’s “protection.”

The Mexican citizen militia – for that is what it is – have armed themselves with whatever comes to hand. They’re capturing firearms from the cartels, police and military and bringing out guns that have been squirreled away for years, hidden from the government ever since the federales turned their back on their citizens’ Constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

Here are photos of some of those citizens who have taken up arms to protect themselves and their families.

Mexico Vigilantes
An armed man belonging to the Self-Defense Council of Michoacan, (CAM), stands guard at checkpoint at the entrance of Antunez, Mexico. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

 

Mexico Vigilantes
A man belonging to the Self-Defense Council of Michacan, (CAM), holds up his gun during an operation to flush out alleged members of the Knights Templar drug cartel from the town of Nueva Italia, Mexico. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

 

Mexico Vigilantes
“Community police” vigilante Rene Zeferino rides in the back of a pickup as his unit patrols the streets of Ayutla de los Libres, Guerrero state, Mexico. Fed up with police corruption and drug gang violence, a number of communities in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero and neighboring states have formed citizen police groups. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

 

Mexico Vigilantes
Men belonging to the Self-Defense Council of Michacan, (CAM), take cover during a firefight while trying to flush out alleged members of the Knights Templar drug cartel from the town of Nueva Italia, Mexico. The vigilantes say they are liberating territory in the so-called Tierra Caliente and are aiming for the farming hub of Apatzingan, said to be the cartel’s central command. Mexican military troops are staying outside the town and there are no federal police in sight. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

 

Members of a FUPCEG vigilante group patrol in Xaltianguis, Guerrero state, Mexico. The heavily armed vigilante force took over the town in the Mexican state of Guerrero last month by driving out a rival band, blowing up a car with gas cylinders and cutting up the body of one of two fallen foes. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

 

 

78 COMMENTS

    • There you go. I was having a hard time putting into words what the expressions on their faces were trying to tell.
      I have to be honest, I get a little emotional looking at these pictures. There’s something really powerful going on.

  1. There is hope. And I repeatedly notice on the “Borderland Beat” blog the following: The cartel photos feature lots of very young guys. The ‘vigilantes’ photos often show older guys. There’s a theme: Thugs recruit the young because they are…recruitable, reckless and hell bent on impressing their peers, and possessed of no reluctance to be violent.

    The only way to displace the pandemic corruption of the governing class in Mexico is to supplant them from below. It’s obvious. It’s overdue. It is disgusting to see the government essentially collaborate with the cartels in order to preserve the status quo. Reminds me of Chicago.

      • Hopefully us younguns will take of business then. I eagerly await my CCW permit, and am trying to decide if my next purchase should be a Mini-14 or an AR pistol.

    • And keep in mind the reason the Mexican government has always supported the mass movement of young males to the US to find work. Not only do they send US dollar remittances back to their families in Mexico, they represent the “revolutionary class” in Mexico. Their gov’t (usually the PRI – “Party of the Institutionalized Revolution”) does not want anyone else fomenting a non-institutionalized revolution.

      So these older guys who have had it with the cozy government/cartel partnership are the worst fear of the Mexican gov’t.

  2. As the saying indicates, this is the “good men doing something” part. ¡Viva la Revolución!

    I don’t suppose I will be hearing from my president on how we need to arm and supply these “freedom fighters”?…no, didn’t think so.

  3. My only prayer is that the U.S. stays the hell out of this fight. Not out of some “pointless war” point of view, but from a historical viewpoint that freedom won is generally more cherished than freedom given. It will be bloody and U.S. military intervention would most definitely save the lives of Mexican civilians but I do believe the end result will be a much more stable (and free) government than if we marched in and handed the revolutionaries the keys.

    • I’m cynical enough to believe that when (not if) the US government meddles in the situation, it will to prop up the corrupt government and military, because the types of silk pantywaists that graduate from Ivy League schools and go into government like to have “order.” It doesn’t matter if it is corrupt and oppressive order, they just like predictability.

      A grassroots revolution that overthrows a corrupt government isn’t tidy or orderly. The stripey-pants set at the US State Department tend to lose bladder control when armed mobs start taking down governments. They then start clutching at their strings of pearls and asking for the US military and TLA’s to “do something.”

      Unless they’re funded and staffed by Salafists, in which case all is OK and we’ll give armed uprising some really cool arms.

  4. looks like hunting shotguns are the majority of the weapons in the photos. I hope they are using slugs to get at least a little range.
    These are the people whom we should be arming fast and furiously.

    • A determined and ruthless man with a shotgun can get himself an AK and a chrome plated 1911. Ambush and then strip the bodies of the cartel or federales. You may get both in the same ambush.

      • Imagine what the same man can get with the AK and 1911, especially if he has like-minded friends.

        I’m loving it. The middle f’ing up both sides majorly.

    • Men who have something to fight for with shotgun are scarier than men who hide in the barracks with M16s.

    • I’m thinking that every cartel member taken down is a source of supply.

      “Take down a cartel member, upgrade your weapon.”

  5. “They’re […] bringing out guns that have been squirreled away for years, hidden from the government ever since the federales turned their back on their citizens’ Constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”

    Wait, what? The Mexican constitution has a Second Amendment equivalent?

  6. God’s speed Mexico!!!! Drag out every elected official, cartel member, government bureaucrat, federale and member of the Army and execute them all… the whole stinking lot of them. The entire system is rotten from top to bottom, so toss it out. Your country is in desparate need of a purge, and righteth soon. When you’re done, draft a new constitution based on ours but address the loopholes that have allowed U.S. leaders to undermine it. Put us to shame and give us something to strive towards!!! Let’s spread some liberty in North America.

    • They could start with the Constitution of the Iroquois Federation; ours is based upon it, in part.

      • Highly disputed and no contemporary text during the constitutional convention to validate the claim.

        Further, representational and constitutional government was well understood by european contemporaries. It wasn’t an invention of the native americans.

    • Your revolution, with all the public official executing, sounds a lot like a French or Russian one. How’d those work out?

      • I’d inject french revolution style change into Mexico in a second. Their current government and system needs to be destroyed. Period. The line between the government and organized crime no longer exists. It is an imminent threat to our national security, and a daily affront to the liberty of all Mexicans. Tear it down. The very idea of reforming the current system is f*cking laughable.

        A free Mexico, espoused in liberty, is good for Mexicans and good for the continent.

  7. This almost brings a tear to my eye! Damn, the Mexicans are showing us how it’s done! I hope the U.S. government is taking note. When the Feds become corrupt it is a true injustice worthy of death! Mexican government officials have historically been corrupt but they took it too far. They forgot they are outnumbered 1000 to 1 and that a pissed off citizenry when finally provoked enough will storm over them like ants over a melting M&M. I truly hope Obama is taking careful note of how societies can deal with tyranny if pushed too far. Tell me again how our government in the United States ISN’T hoarding ammo in fear of insurrection….tell me that lie again!!

    • You just described the movie, “ANTS”. Great movie that every Person of the Gun should see. And if you’ve seen it, you should see it again.

  8. This is what the 2nd Amendment is all about. This is what the phrase “a well regulated militia” is referring to.

  9. “Vigilante” is what people call others who have a necessity to take care of their own problems, because those who should be taking care of it, aren’t.

    That spit shot is really cool.

    • “They ain’t pearl. They are ivory!”

      Is what I imagine the guy saying before whopping someones ass.

    • I too noticed this “Vigilante” vs. “militia” wording in various reports. I’m guessing the people that call them vigilantes are leftist, anti-gun, pro-government losers and those that call them militia are patriots. Call them what you will but don’t call them ineffective! I bet the Knights Templar are crapping their pants. This came in under the radar and these thugs aren’t use to resistance. So poetically just!!

  10. We have to watch this carefully.

    Sure, they may begin with pure intentions, but more often than not the revolutionaries turn out to be just as bad as — if not worse than — the scumbags that they ousted.

    For the moment, though, it’s sad to see that is has come to this but I am cautiously optimistic at seeing people literally fighting for their homes and livelihoods.

  11. The rapid spread of the self-defense groups, and the widespread backing they’re receiving from the public is going to put the Mexican government into a very serious bind, very soon.

    The government has only three choices:

    1. They can do nothing. Government employees are pretty accomplished at doing this, especially in Mexico. The trouble is, this position merely validates the self defense group’s point: the government will do nothing to protect the law abiding and innocent. Government loses the rest of their credibility, albeit at a slower rate than the next option…

    2. The government cracks down on the self defense groups. The Mexican government and military don’t have the resources to go after the cartels and the self defense groups at the same time, and everyone knows the military is now compromised. The militias aren’t just mere rabble now – from the stuff I’m reading, they’re acquiring significant arms in significant numbers, and the military won’t find them a pushover any more. Taking down the militias will be costly in lives, money and property damage.

    By doing this, the government loses all credibility in weeks, instead of years. The government might extend their lifetime awhile by doing this, but when the people finally do succeed in overthrowing the government, heads will literally roll.

    3. The government can go after the cartels in a really meaningful way. The trouble is, the government, military and police forces are so riddled with cartel employees and informants that the government would expose just how corrupt they are as the cartel employees try to stop the military from accomplishing anything significant. The government loses the rest of their meager credibility in months.

    The only way I see for the government to recoup credibility is to start ferreting out the cartel informants and employees in the government, military and police, and summarily executing them in public. The executions need to be numerous, brutal, public and widely publicized for the public to start regaining any trust in the government. Numerous because everyone knows how widely compromised the government/military/police are. Brutal to show the cartels that the gloves are off and the brutality of the cartels will be met with the same or more.

    Then after the government cleans ranks, they could attain some success in going after the cartels.

    I don’t think that this will happen, and as a result I think we’re quickly approaching a point where the government of Mexico could actually fail.

    • I was also impressed by that. Not perfect, but a damn sight better than most other groups we’ve seen.

  12. “If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be

    a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.” – Winston Churchill

  13. Despues 20 anos Las Zapatistas vivan! Pinche gobierno curropto finalmente esta al punto a fallar. Esa tierra estaba robado de la gente indegina, y despues Guatemala (The second best country behind the US of course, they let tourists pack heat)

    DON’T GIVE THE GOV’T SUS ARMAS. THEY WILL LEAVE YOU WITH YOUR PANTS DOWN. ***DO NOT*** TRUST THE MEXICAN GOV’T!!! WORLD FAMOUS CORRUPTION ON ALL LEVELS!

    • Also, realize the Gov’t doesn’t want to get rid of the cartels (especially PRI). Two of largest sources of income are 1) Drugs 2) money sent back from the US from scared ex-patriots. Their GDP would be destroyed if the cartels disappeared.

      We need to bring back manufacturing jobs to the US and Mexico. What would you rather have: A mexican made XYZ, or a Chinese XYZ…… Pretty easy if you ask me. (PS look up chinese currency manipulation)

      Remember when TVs and other consumer goods used to say “Hecho en Mexico”……

      ——————-
      Also remember the DEA helped the Sinaloa cartel launder more than 250 Billion dollars through HSBC…..

  14. The people of Mexico need to follow the lead of freedom fighters in Egypt! A shame the rest of the country doesn’t call to arms and free themselves of the oppression of their foully corrupt government! Viva Mexican freedom fighters! All their coward brothers are in our country the USA!

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