Rob- much preferred your comments on Facebook

Are narco shootouts common in your neighborhood? Because even here in lawless Guerrero they aren't common in my neighborhood. And we have no doubt where the underlying problem begins.

For the last six months they have been common in your neighborhood! And whatever the underlying problem may or may not be, the big problem is the lack of response locally. And you know it. You post about it on FB but here, no. I think this is the thread you should get going because bullets will get more response than dogs.

Pile on why don't you? No problem.

The fact that we're having this discussion instead of simply blowing it off demonstrates quite clearly that shootouts are NOT common here, and my neighbors and I are not accustomed to them as you'll notice by the comments on the Facebook posts you already referred to.

If you've lived here for any length of time and paid attention to local, state and national news then you should know Mexico is clearly overwhelmed by the growing power of the narco trade at every level. Mexico will never have the resources of the cartels.

What will happen is some criminals will be caught, some will be punished, others will be killed, some will run away to other communities, others will move in to take their place. The cancer isn't the drug trade. It's the failed policy of Prohibition 2.0. You can only waste so many police and civilian lives until you have to face reality.

Every single citizen here in Zihuatanejo is clamoring for more and better police, but reality always gets in the way. So again, while in an ideal world we would have well-trained and equipped police forces here fighting crime and winning, we don't. We have a different reality that has continued in a different direction now for several decades. Doesn't "failed policy" mean the same thing in your vocabulary as it does mine?