There are certain efforts with a somewhat similar idea behind them, called "auto defensas" meaning "self-defense (civilian) forces".

Basically people in towns ravaged by narcos got fed up with it and started defending themselves because they couldn't trust the local/federal authorities to defend them anymore. A very brave thing to do if you ask me.

However... the sad part is that, on the one hand, fighting an armed group with so much man- and fire-power as the different cartel groups have, it's very hard. Especially because a lot of these narco armed forces have actual military training and even when not, they are so ruthless and savage that it's hard to fight back. The sheer amount of terror these groups can inflict is staggering.

Some of these towns that chose to defend themselves were some time later attacked by huge convoys of 100+ attackers armed with grenade launchers, automatic weapons, frigging M60s and even heavier ones (some groups have anti-air guns strapped to the back of their trucks)... and most importantly, these attackers were ready to kill on sight, whereas the townspeople were armed with hunting rifles and some handguns and definitely not with the same blood lust and ability (or even the nerve) to kill people.

Lots of these towns are now deserted because people had to fled to the surrounding areas after such violent payback attacks.

And to top it all off, if you at least had the government NOT intervene either way... well, you could maybe stand your ground for some time. The problem is that in most of these places the government authorities where actually against having armed civilian forces (and in some cases even in cohoots with the narcos), so they would have to fight both against armed forces AND against government propaganda ("these are not self-defense forces, they are just another narco group taking hold of the town") plastered all over the country in major newspapers and tv stations (which de-legitimizes those self-defense forces that are actually trying to, you know, defend themselves), while at the same time local and federal forces trying to dis-arm them.

It's a really complicated problem for which I definitely have no idea how to solve.

Just imagine having to stand up and defend your town against a military force that, by some estimations, could reach upwards of 15,000 armed men... in one cartel alone. What can a town with a total population of...what... 3,000? 10,000 people? do against a heavily armed and trained para-military force?

And to be clear, those people that did try to defend themselves have my utmost respect. I can't even begin to imagine the amount of desperation you need to be in to try to fight back to such a powerful and horrific group of people.

But in the end it's heartbreaking to see them defend themselves to just later have them be wiped out or threatened with so much torture and terror that it boggles the mind.

A lot of these self-defense forces held up for maybe 2 or 3 years and are now either bought and influenced by some competing narco group or just terrorized out of their towns forever (at least that's what little info I could gather over the years of reading different news sources, both official and otherwise. Not really sure how much of that is real or not since I don't live in any of these towns).

It just doesn't seem... feasible. Maybe I'm a defeatist saying these things... but holy shit, you just have to listen to what someone like Dr. Mireles [1] had to say to get a tiny part of the terrible picture here.

The problem is much much bigger than people can imagine... and I'm not even in the front line here. I'm just some city dude "far" away (as much as "far away" can one be while living here in this country) from these realities.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Manuel_Mireles_Valve...