Mexican Gun Violence

The Belmont Club has a story of a Mexican farmer who decided to fight back against the cartels:

One big story that hasn’t yet made it across the Spanish-English divide is the epic of Don Alejo Garza, an elderly farmer who fought a one-man stand against a drug gang.  When they gave him a deadline to leave his property or else, Garza sent his ranch hands home and armed himself. There he waited. When the gang came in the dead of the night he met them with a fusilade and killed four and wounded two before the numerically superior drug enforcers finally took him out with gunfire and hand-grenades. The Mexican Marines arrived on the scene to find  bodies all over and an old man at the center of it all.

One man fighting back with small arms managed to rack up a pile of bodies fighting back against a barrage of heavily armed opponents. I’m going to guess Senor Garza was probably a pretty good shot. It’s a shame that he was ultimately was murdered anyway. But how many cartel members did he remove from society who won’t go on to murder others? How many elderly farmers fighting back with small arms would it take before the cartels ran out of violent thugs? How long before they decided keeping a lower profile was the better option to declaring open warfare against Mexican civilians?

And here’s a question for our Brady friends. What if Garza armed himself with a gun smuggled in from the United States? I can promise you the grenades the cartels eventually used to kill him didn’t come from gun shows, FFLs or private sales here. I’m sure they will say he’d have been better off abandoning his property to the cartels anyway, because he’d still be alive. We’re all better off, in their minds, surrendering to evil. I say there are worse things than death. My hat is off to Senor Garza. May he rest in peace. If there were 1000 more farmers like him I don’t think the violence in Mexico would continue for long.

10 thoughts on “Mexican Gun Violence”

  1. Hi!!
    My English is bad.
    Just to clarify.
    He was a businessman, and this was his country house.
    Besides deer hunter, weapons collection and belonged to a hunting club.
    Carried a handgun license.
    Had no illegal weapons!!!!
    Saludos y gracias….

  2. It is unfortunate that he was unable to access the Blackwater Rent-a-Friend program where he lived. Do you think we can take up a collection to hel out the next guy?

  3. It’s a shame he was fighting alone, but I’m glad he decided to stand his ground. Maybe it’ll inspire his neighbors to do the same.

    Want to bet that Joan won’t care to comment on this?

  4. It’s amazing what one determined, armed man can do, and how strong the instinct is to defend one’s life and property. I hope there are other proud sons of Mexico who are willing to pick up where Don Garcia left off. If so, there might be some hope for a country so devastated by thugs and tyrants.

    God Bless Don Alejandro Garcia, and may a host of angels watch over his eternal rest.

  5. In response to what Isabella said at #1:

    Wow, there are actual handgun licenses in Mexico? I never knew that.

    I would guess that handgun carry licenses in Mexico are reserved only for the rich and politically-connected though – just like they are in places like New York City, and in states like New Jersey.

  6. I’m somewhat surprised that some enterprising Hollywood producer hasn’t looked at the situation south of the border and thought “Hmmmn, who can I will play the Yul Brenner role, who will play Charles Bronson and Steve McQueen and Eli Wallach and Robert Vaughn and James Coburn and…”

    And I just now realized why nobody’s re-made The Magnificent Seven, because Hollywood of today doesn’t have anyone who can fill the shoes of actors like that.

  7. You also don’t have a lot of directors or writers who would touch a film like that. Wouldn’t want to give the proles any ideas.

  8. Saw a similar story last year about Mennonites in Mexico being targeted for extortion or just plain “expropriation” rackets by cartels. Mexican gun laws have always been a way to maintain their obscene social stratification & create dependence on the government. But who are Americans to talk, really, when you realize the situation in big cities with gun control–Baltimore, Chicago, etc.–has created the exact same situation with drug gangs ruling the roost and honest people running scared.

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