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.
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)
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)
“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)
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)
