[2banana]

"This is becoming a town ruled by the law of the maras," said Jose Juan Perez a city councilman in Ciudad Hidalgo

I don't get it. Mexico has some of the world's toughest gun laws. It is nearly impossible for a law abiding citizen to legally own a firearm. Why is their crime rate so high?

[17th Miss Regt]

Because the government is not law abiding. The rules don't apply to them....

[Eric in the Ozarks]

It used to be an ordinary citizen could own a handgun in Mexico. You just have to know someone in government and magnum calibers are banned.

[FITZ]

I don't get it. Mexico has some of the world's toughest gun laws. It is nearly impossible for a law abiding citizen to legally own a firearm. Why is their crime rate so high?

Mexico's society is becoming unglued at a very fast rate. All hell is breaking lose --- and one problem is the massive migration rates they've seen in the past few years. NAFTA destroyed the Mexican agricultural life and it's values --- millions of campesinos lost their farms and way of living. Families are being uprooted, social ties are severed. Mothers abandon their children all day to work in a maquila.