What do you do when the state ruling over your area refuses to protect you and even goes so far as to make it illegal to protect yourself? You give them the middle finger, which is what many Mexican citizens are doing to protect themselves against the drug cartels:
In Mexico, where criminals are armed to the teeth with high-powered weapons smuggled from the United States, it may come as a surprise that the country has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the world.
Smuggled in by our government as part of Operation Fast and Furious.
But on July 7, 2009, close to 20 men showed up at Benjamin LeBaron’s house, according to his older brother, Julian LeBaron.
“They wanted to terrorize everyone into never opposing them,” Julian LeBaron says. “They dragged Benjamin out of his house, and [his brother-in-law Luis Widmar] came to help him.”
Then, he says, the criminals took the two men a couple of miles down the road and shot them.
The cold-blooded murders of Benjamin LeBaron and Luis Widmar galvanized the community, Julian LeBaron says. It prompted them to take a stance that is familiar to Second Amendment advocates in the U.S., but one that is taboo in Mexico.
“I think there would be less violence if there were more guns, in the sense that I could barge in here and do whatever I want, knowing that this guy doesn’t have a gun,” says Jose Widmar, the brother of slain Luis.
Today, if the gangsters return, the LeBaron colony is locked and loaded.
The average person in the United States and most European nations are fortunate that they can live a life relatively free of violence. Unfortunately relatively safe lives lead people to forget the necessity of self-defense and thus lose pasion for their right to keep and bear arms.
These lessons are quickly being learned in Mexico though, where armed drug cartels all but run the country and view human life as being without value. The Mexican government has been unable to protect the people yet demand the people be unarmed. Now people living in Mexico are going to the really free market (often incorrectly called the black market) to obtain the means of personal defense. I commend these people and demand those advocating for the disarmament of the citizenry explain what alternative these people have.