In Mexico, a boutique caters to the fearful high-fashion crowd with bullet proof clothing of all kinds.
There is a whole lot of shooting going on in Mexico today. Every day, the papers are full of victims, bodies lying out in grotesque poses with bullet wounds all about. Some are garden-variety crime victims, but the drug cartels that control much of the Mexican countryside are behind the overwhelming majority. They pay off politicians and police officers and act as shadow governments in town after town along their transit routes. Cross them, and they do not hesitate to pull the trigger.
The rash of drug violence, together with a surge in kidnappings for ransom, has shaken everyday Mexicans. Ask a stranger for directions on the street these days, and fear is the first emotion that crosses the person’s face. He or she might recover enough to describe how to go this way or that.
Studies have shown that more and more anxious Mexicans are pouring their money into defensive measures. Families and businesses across Mexico invest $18 billion in private security measures, a recent study by the Center for Economic Studies of the Private Sector found. Some people are trying to get their hands on weapons, which are tightly regulated here but widely available on the black market. To some, bulletproof fashion is the logical next step.
I could use some of this brand of haute couture myself. I go to faculty meetings. I have in-laws. I even go to Costco.
Weapons in Mexico are “tightly regulated but widely available on the black market”, and people are getting shot constantly, thus proving just how well gun control actually works.
In the meantime, Mexico’s government is so corrupt, at all levels, that I see no solution in sight that doesn’t involve a major revolution of some kind.
What I do know is that the USA can’t solve Mexico’s problems for it, and keeping illegal immigration fairly easy simply enables Mexico to maintain the status quo.
