The gun-related news coming out of Mexico is so bad and so voluminous I can’t post it all. So I want to make a general point about America and Mexico’s Second Amendment (yes they have one too) and share just a few examples of what happens when the right to keep and bear arms is lost. The basic: when citizens are unarmed or disarmed, corruption results. Gradually, the rule of law disappears. The specific: look how bad it can get when the general public can’t defend themselves from each other, criminals, the police and the government. Let’s start with the effects on the environment. Check this recent post from eldiariodechihuahua.mx . . .
Chihuahua .- Besides the danger of fighting a wildfire in the Sierra Tarahumara of Chihuahua, the brigade must confront drug trafficking groups with powerful firearms who scared the fire fighters away from areas where they plant drugs.
Even some people in several mountain towns like Madera, Bocoyna, Guachochi and Guadalupe y Calvo, have complained publicly that drug traffickers are precisely those that generate some wildfires to keep them away from certain areas, or because the fire destroyed regions where they have planted marijuana and poppy.
And now trees, from proceso.com:
CHER Mich., May 23 (Process) .- The village looks like a battlefield: 350 barricades, fires, piles of stones and wood, sand bags and cars act as trenches that people use to defend against illegal loggers supported by armed gangs of organized crime.
For more than a month remains in this place a self-imposed siege. The residents watch the clock and inputs and outputs of the village.
Each day that passes the situation becomes more critical in the Purépecha region of Michoacán. In addition to blockade the inhabitants of this village, access to the entire area were also closed on Thursday 12th by loggers, backed by organized crime gangs.
This dual blockade affects the entire Meseta Purépecha, consisting of eight towns where the gangs destroyed 12,000 hectares of forest, said a committee of Cheran.
One villager said: “Schools and businesses remain closed as well. Many people who work elsewhere, even in Morelia, can not leave. The municipal police left the village but no one trusts them because they protect the loggers. On Monday 9, Undersecretary for Legal Affairs and Human Rights Department of the Interior, Felipe de Jesus Zamora Castro, told us that federal police arrive and the Army, but there is nothing.”
Freedom of speech? That goes too. elpasotimes.com reports:
The government of Mexico’s Gulf coast state of Tabasco is threatening legal action against people who spread rumors of drug violence on social networking sites.
Some of the tweets and Facebook posts cited by the government appear threatening. Other posts that warn people not to go out because there is a supposed “curfew” could fall under laws prohibiting threats.
But some of the cited posts appear to simply refer to gunfights that have killed people in the area recent days.
A state government statement Tuesday says authorities are tracing messages and will “act with all the weight of the law” against posters.
Tabasco officials refuse to specify what laws have purportedly been violated or what charges could be brought.
elpasotimes.com also chronicles the effects of disarmament on private property [NB: does this remind anyone of Detroit?]:
JUAREZ — Most of the houses in Villas Residencial have no doors, no windowpanes, and graffiti covers graffiti on every wall. Everything that could be resold — electrical wiring, sewer lids, anything made out of copper — is gone.
Rows upon rows of houses have been abandoned in this housing project located on the southeast side of the city. People left because of the lack of security or the lack of work. The few who stayed have nowhere else to go.
“Back home, you either work at the mines or with the narcos,” said a maquiladora worker from Parral who preferred not to be identified.
About a quarter of the homes in Juárez are empty due to the massive exodus of people who have fled the current wave of violence, and the urban planning mistakes of the past. Now, the abandoned neighborhoods attract vandalism, breed new criminals, weigh down financially on the city and represent one of the biggest obstacles for its recovery.
Citywide, the number of people who have left Juárez in the last three years is about 230,000, according to one study.
I could prattle on [again] about how America is pissing away billions of dollars fighting wars abroad when we have what Hillary Clinton rightly called (before she took it back) an insurgency on our southern border.
Suffice it to say, cold dead hands. Or this. Never take your gun rights for granted, or you can lose everything you hold dear. Note to gun control advocates: your children can thank us later.
Would it be so bad if we annexed Mexico? I honestly don’t think so. Let’s do it.
My response to the los reconquistadores que se dicen, “Arizona and California were once part of Mexico! It belongs to US!” is…
“That’s right, and we kicked your a$$ in 1846 and took it away from you. Want to go ‘double or nothing’?” 🙂
We are getting our asses handed to us in two countries already. Want to make it a third? You ain’t seen nothing yet. Who is macho now?
Yes, it’d be another war we can’t pay for.
Then enjoy seeing “Homeland Security” used as an excuse to remove every right they’ve failed to remove already.
1) I was kidding. 😛
2) I meant voluntary annexation.
1. not funny
2. once we fix our own blossoming problems we can try to solve mexico’s
I don’t know how voluntary it could be.
It would pit safety versus machismo, and I know what most Hispanic guys will vote for.
I’m surprised that Hollywood hasn’t done a remake of The Magnificent Seven, set in the modern age, considering that…
a) The narcos roam the countryside at will, much like Calveras and his men
b) Los campesinos are unarmed (again)
c) Due to our overseas involvements, there is no shortage of men on this side of the border who know how to fight a counterinsurgency.
The script, it writes itself.
But that would be racist and homophobic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111
Homophobic? Come on, take your implied political opponents seriously.
in a way, all of us have an el Guapo to face someday
Awesome link!
“…share just a few examples of what happens when the right to keep and bear arms is lost. The basic: when citizens are unarmed or disarmed, corruption results. Gradually, the rule of law disappears. The specific: look how bad it can get when the general public can’t defend themselves from each other, criminals, the police and the government.”
This is a rather simplistic and misleading comment. To insinuate the cause of Mexico’s current anarchy has a direct causal link to its national gun control policy ignores huge, huge, HUGE sociological, economic, political, and historical factors which are fundamental to the problem. If Mexico had the most liberal gun regulations there would still be enormous problems with corruption in that country. There is no clear cause and effect between Mexico’s gun policy and corruption. I could just as easily opine the corruption is a cause of the gun policy, not the effect of it. Mexico’s situation is complex and the U.S.’s own policies, namely the so-called war on drugs, has exacerbated the problem there more than any one internal Mexican policy we might point at.
“Would it be so bad if we annexed Mexico?”
Caramba! That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard since the last Presidential election. We should be trying to keep the Mexicanos out of the tent, not inviting them in. This article should be entitled: “Why We Need the Second Amendment and Don’t Need Mexico.”
No, shut up. If we annex Mexico, we get, like, big hats. And other really cool shit.
ralph is wise.
Mexico doesn’t even rank up there with the third world countries, so we should just turn them into a parking lot.
More like Fallujah.
To say that Mexico has devolved into it’s current state because its citizens are unarmed is utter ignorance. It is not a cause. It is a circumstance. How wonderful it would be if it were that easy. The peso was one to one with the dollar in 70’s. Life was good. And guess what? No guns then either. Mexico’s wealth was and still is concentrated in a very small %of the population. The wealth was transferred to the oligarchs and the middle class (people who buy $hit) was decimated. The vacuum was filled by corruption and thuggery. In Mex’s case it created a drug culture that spiraled out of control. You want to talk about guns….now you can. Too often people think that as long as we can bear arms everything is going to be alright. Thinking and voting that way will only guarantee we will need them one day. Unlike in Mexico, our circumstance will be one where we have a fighting chance.
Too often impressionistic idealists with an inadequate understanding of sociopolitical reality lodge their faith in democracy.
Gun control is a leading cause of teen pregnancy. Also, tooth decay.
It seems I must make the link in more detail. At this point, simply note this: the general population of Mexico is unarmed, helpless against gun-toting police, troops and narco thugs. Judges, police chiefs, journalists and political activists have all been executed. What would that do to a supposed free society? How would laws against murder—which already exist, obviously—protect them? When the SHTF, it’s every man for himself.
Believing that law and order is a top-down process is incredibly, dangerously naive. As yourself this: if you were a law-abiding Mexican with a family in drug cartel territory (which is now vast), would you want be unarmed? And if you were, how would you protect your political power and personal freedoms?
Further to my previous post, you seem to be insinuating that a civilian population that happened to allow individual gun ownership would somehow become spontaneously and automatically more powerful than an organized and trained military coupled with an organized and trained drug cartel.
Hollywood plot lines notwithstanding, when you are dominated and terrorized by criminal gangs and corrupt authorities, you do not simply step out of your front door and dual-wield your trusty ARs, spraying millions of rounds until every bad guy dies.
Actually, you do what the Mexicans are doing now: you stay home, you compromise, and you stay out of the bad guys’ way. You probably distance yourself from all weapons as much as possible, since being caught with a firearm by the criminals or authorities is probably a death sentence for you and everyone you fucking know.
If the government ever went rogue in the USA, plenty of Preppers and SHTFers and hillbillies and internet cowboys would do their best Rambo impersonations. And most of them would end up lying in the dirt with one magazine half-fired, mostly serving as very good examples about overt resistance being futile.
If I were in Mexico right now with my Mom, and sister, and wife and kids, the last thing I’d want to do is be in the same *town* as a guy who put a bullet in a cartel member.
It just doesn’t make sense.
What I gather from Joel and Magoo’s comments, and the point I attempted to make earlier, is that correlation does not mean causality. I fully agree the Mexican populace should be able to arm themselves, but their lack of legal ability to do so is not the single root cause of this situation, nor is the sole solution reversing this prohibition. I also agree leadership as a top down process is dangerous, BUT to say this in this context ignores the reality of the Mexican situation since Cortez stepped on the continent. It is dangerous to apply our standards and beliefs onto Mexico – what I or you would do is not relevant; this ethnocentrism is not helpful in either understanding or fixing the crisis in Mexico.
Thugs and criminals roaming the land raping and pillaging, guns outlawed so only outlaws have guns, etc.
YES, THAT SITUATION SUCKS.
The lack of guns in the hands of private citizens *caused* this situation?
NO, IT DID NOT.
Had private citizens been better-armed, this situation would not have happened.
NOT DEMONSTRABLE.
I like this site, but every now and then it mixes up correlation and causation in an unsettling way.
I say go ahead and say that the current situation in Mexico sucks, and say it loudly and repeatedly. It’s a good eye-opener for the gun-grabbers, and I think that’s what you were trying to do here.
Insinuating that the social and political problems of an entire nation can be solved (or would never have occurred in the first place) had the majority of citizens had more killing power, in my opinion, simply undermines your credibility.
Plenty of countries are as bad or even worse off, despite there being an AK in every hut. Correlation != causation.
I do agree that the Mexican situation is out of hand. However your comment:
“The basic: when citizens are unarmed or disarmed, corruption results. Gradually, the rule of law disappears.” may be a bit over-dramatic. There are many, many reasons (social, political, financial, moral, cultural, etc..) as to why Mexico has fallen into the the hands of the corrupt. I can’t agree with you that the tight gun controls are a direct correlation.
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