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.