With corruption so bad Mexicans can’t defend themselves because of their gun laws they can only own bolt action hunting rifles in strict situations while the cartels illegally own military grade semi-auto rifles and armored vehicles. These people have no one to protect them except themselves. These aren’t pistol wielding street thugs, they’re a coordinated army with no rules of engagement and no one of high authority to stop them because anyone who matters is compromised or threatened into silence.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Armed only with sickles and hunting rifles, they chased down suspected gang members amid bursts of automatic gunfire on Dec. 8, hacking, shooting and burning them.

The abducted adults include three policemen who were seized at a cartel roadblock, and a wounded villager the gang snatched from a hospital soon after the clash.

But residents of the village and a nearby hamlet said the Familia Michoacana drug cartel was demanding they hand over the leaders of the uprising, in exchange for releasing the kidnapped children and adults.

Cervantes said none of the villagers would face charges for the Dec. 8 clash, because the confrontation had been classified as “legitimate self defense” because the farmers were defending their properties.

Drug cartels in Mexico have been known to extort money from almost any legal or illegal business that they can, sometimes attacking or burning ranches, farms or stores that refuse to pay.

The Familia Michoacana is known for its brazen ambushes of police, as well as the the 2022 massacre of 20 townspeople in the town of Totolapan in neighboring state of Guerrero.

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