Guns Dont't Kill People. People Kill People.

IF guns don't kill people, BUT people kill people, THEN what kind of people kill people? What kind of people are ready, willing and able to kill people? People with no love of God in their hearts and no knowledge of God in their head.
The debate that is raging misses the point. All the legislation in the world will not stop cold-hearted people from killing each other. A heart without God is cold.
Our education system and our politicians have failed us. Our children are not taught about God or the sacredness of human life. God is leaving us to our own devices. We were created with the ability to choose, and we have chosen to shut God out of our schools, city halls, and our homes. He has not rejected us; we have abandoned him. Now, we are killing each other. If there were no guns, we would choose the most convenient and available method to kill. We are a blood thirsty people, without God. We have become spiritually and morally bankrupt. We would rather be politically correct than morally correct.
We live in an embarrassing, politically correct culture that exalts and rejoices in the bizarre; aggressively promotes an “anything goes” value system.
We will scratch around the margins of the violent mass killings, looking to government to solve the problem, but we will accomplish nothing. We will be doing little more than rearranging the furniture on the deck of the Titanic. Without God, we can do nothing.

On the morning of December 14th, evil descended in full force on Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. Our eyes beheld a profound scene of weeping, and grieving families. Our hearts are broken; our words are too feeble to comfort the children who witnessed the bloodshed.   The mothers and fathers who kissed their children and said," See you when school is over", have come too soon, to pick up a lifeless child. The pain is deep, and will ravage their lives forever. It will scar our nation for some time. We thank all who came into this helpless situation to rescue, counsel, and comfort, for they were God's heart, hands and feet in this tragedy.

I am reminded of a similar scene described by the words of the prophet Jeremiah long ago:

 "...a voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because her children are no more."

Like the Psalmist, I raise my voice to God and ask, "Why have you abandoned the children and teachers?" Yet a small voice in the midst of my anguish, reminds me that God was weeping, and in deep mourning that day as well. With outstretched loving hands, He received the souls from Sandy Hook Elementary school. He is wrapping Himself around the grieving families, and will remain so as long as they hunger for comfort.

There’s something terribly wrong. Something stinks. Something is rotten in America.
Something is causing young loners to pick up guns and slaughter people.
Cops, psychologists, sociologists, politicians and various other talking heads will jabber incessantly about why they think a young man snapped and killed a bunch of bubbly young children who were looking forward to Santa Claus.
They will offer their opinions on what they think can be done to stop future psychotics from committing mass murder. They all will be guessing.
Some blabbermouths already are using the Connecticut school massacre to promote their anti-gun agenda even though more gun laws won’t prevent a psychotic from getting a gun and killing us.
Others will say we need even more security in schools. While this may be true, other mass slaughters have occurred at restaurants, shopping malls, churches and movie theaters. Violence can strike anywhere at any time.
Some will argue we don’t have enough mental health treatment programs, while others will argue that we can’t violate the privacy and civil liberties of the mentally ill.
Others will blame video and computer games and the entertainment industry. They will argue that a constant stream of graphic violence turns some disconnected young men into bug-eyed, raving lunatics who commit mass murders.
They will all be scratching around the margins of the problem, possibly afraid to admit the truth, rather than cutting to the heart of the matter.
The heart of the matter is that our Humpty Dumpty culture has taken a great fall.
Like an iceberg, we only periodically see the psychotic manifestation, the tip of our shattered culture, but what lies just beneath the surface is a gigantic cultural cancer that is rotting America from within.
The ugly and dangerous truth is that we live in an embarrassing, politically correct culture that exalts and rejoices in the bizarre; aggressively promotes an “anything goes” value system; and vilifies, condemns and mocks traditional societal values and customs at every opportunity.
We’ve embraced a culture of contempt that attacks the very institutions that make for a healthy and strong society, and then we’re shocked when it spirals out of control. The only thing I’m shocked about is that anybody is shocked.
More laws and more restrictions won’t fix our culture. The problem we face is much deeper and more insidious. What ails us is a spiritual bankruptcy of cultural values that actually matter. More laws and restrictions can’t cure that.
Until we admit what’s at the heart of the matter, we will continue to put a Band-Aid on gaping wounds and try to convince ourselves we’ve done something meaningful.

As with most things, the cure to this mess begins and ends with the family. Traditional family values have been under siege for decades by our culture of contempt. In the absence of a solid family, the whole thing slowly unravels and rots.
Our greatest fear should be that we’ll scratch around the margins by looking to government to solve the problem  . With the best of intentions, our government will hold commissions, write lengthy reports and pass a new law or two. Like we always do, we’ll then move along, convinced that we’ve done good and pretending we actually accomplished something.
Meanwhile, somewhere in America, another bug-eyed young man is planning the next massacre.

(Nugent, Ted, Connecticut Killings A Result of Moral Decay, Washington Times,19 Dec. 2012, Commentary, p. B1)

More Americans Killed In Mexico.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — More Americans in Mexico are falling victim to a wave of drug violence sweeping the country, a change driven home by the recent killing of a U.S. Consulate employee and her husband who were gunned down after leaving a children's birthday party.
The number of U.S. citizens killed in Mexico has more than doubled to 79 in 2009 from 35 in 2007, according to the U.S. State Department's annual count. No figures were available for the first two months of 2010.
While only some of the killings are specifically listed as "executions" or "drug-related," the increase in homicides appears to be related to drug battles. In Ciudad Juarez, the northern border city hardest hit by drug violence and where the consulate employee was killed, homicides of Americans rose to 23 in 2009 from two in 2007.
The annual murder rate for the estimated 500,000 American citizens in Mexico at any one time has risen — but still remains lower than in some U.S. cities: about 15 per 100,000. Baltimore's 2009 homicide rate was 37 per 100,000 residents.
American deaths make up only a tiny fraction of Mexico's 17,900 drug-related killings since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderon launched a military-led drug war.
On Saturday, a clash among armed men left eight people dead in the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa. The bodies of seven men were found inside two cars along a highway connecting the cities of Culiacan and Mazatlan, said Sinaloa prosecutors' spokesman Martin Gastelum. An eighth victim, dressed in a fake federal police uniform and holding a grenade, was found near the cars, Gastelum said.
The government says the majority of those killed in Mexico's drug violence were involved in the narcotics trade. But an increasing number of bystanders are dying in the crossfire, and Americans are among them.
Tania Lozoya, 15, of El Paso, Texas, was killed by a stray bullet at her aunt's house across the border in Ciudad Juarez in May 2009, after gunfire broke out when two men chased another man into the backyard of the residence.
In December 2009, a California assistant school principal, Augustin Salcedo, was killed after he was abducted from a restaurant along with five other men while he and his wife were visiting her hometown of Gomez Palacio, in the northern state of Durango. The motive for the mass abduction remains unclear.
Other Americans appear to have been specifically targeted.
U.S. anti-kidnapping expert Felix Batista was abducted by gunmen in December 2008 in the northern city of Saltillo, where he had gone to advise local businessmen on how to avoid becoming victims of the country's wave of kidnappings. He has not been found.
"I see it as, my brother was interfering with their profit margin," said Batista's sister, Jackie Batista. "That's their line of business. Other than drugs, it's kidnapping, so people want to know how to keep themselves safe, and that intrudes into their profit margin."
More than a year after his disappearance, nobody knows for sure who took Batista.
The prosecutors' office in the state of Coahuila, where Saltillo is located, confirmed that no trace of Batista has been found, and they now appear to consider it an inactive case.
"I think that's my biggest fear," Batista said. "That this case will never be resolved. ... Excuse the phrase, and I hate to use it, that it has gone to the grave with those people who were involved."
Americans whose relatives have become victims of Mexico's drug war have established an informal group to support one another and stay informed about what is happening south of the border. "America needs to wake up and smell the kidnappings, smell the drug war," Batista says.
She frequently keeps in touch with San Antonio, Texas resident Jose Esparza, whose two brothers and sister were kidnapped in the northern Mexico town of Cuencame more than a year ago; all were U.S. residents and had spouses or children who are U.S. citizens. As with Felix Batista, there has been no request for ransom, and no sign of the victims.
Esparza says that in Texas alone he has heard from about 10 other people with relatives or friends who disappeared in Mexico.
He and others say they have obtained little or no response from Mexican authorities. Esparza now places his faith in the possibility the U.S. may begin to directly investigate the cases.
"Unless the U.S. government gets involved, nothing is ever going to happen," he said.
FBI officials are aiding Mexican authorities in the investigation into the March 13 killings of U.S. consular employee Lesley A. Enriquez, 35, who was four months pregnant, and her husband, Arthur H. Redelfs, 34.
They were gunned down in their white SUV on a Ciudad Juarez street as they were leaving the birthday party of a child of a U.S. Consulate employee. Their 7-month-old daughter was found wailing in the back of the vehicle.
Investigators are following several lines of investigation as to why gunmen followed the couple's vehicle and a second white SUV that left the same party and was hit in a separate, nearly simultaneous attack. Jorge Alberto Salcido, the husband of a Mexican employee of the consulate, was killed in that assault.
One theory being investigated is that assailants may have been ordered to attack a white SUV, staked out the wrong party and then opened fire on the wrong vehicles.
Another line of investigation is that Redelfs may have been targeted because of his work at an El Paso prison, which is holding several members of the Aztecas gang, believed responsible for the attacks.
More than 200 federal, state and local law enforcement officers swept through El Paso on Thursday, picking up suspected members of the gang in an effort to find new leads in the killings.
Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes does not think the victims were targeted because of their U.S. ties. "I do not think this was a message to the consulate," Reyes said.
But Enriquez's cousin Vicky Torres doesn't see it that way.
"It's a message for the United States, like a challenge: 'Don't you mess around, you Americans, because this will happen,'" she said.
Lourdes Batista, the kidnap victim's wife, says she hopes the crimes will be a wake-up call for the American public.
"I pray that it will be," she said. "We're fighting a war across a big ocean, but what about here? What about our neighbor?"

U.S. Consulate Workers Killed In Mexico Drug War.

First there was Bobby Salcedo form El Monte, California on New Year's Eve 2010. Being a School Board Member he was the first American elected official to be murdered in Mexico. On 13 March the Mexican Drug murders of Americans took an ominous turn.

The drug wars in Mexico took an ominous turn when a U.S. consulate employee and her husband were killed as they left a children's birthday party in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's most violent city. Only minutes earlier gunmen also killed the Mexican husband of another member of the consular staff and wounded his two children.

While a number of US citizens have been killed in Mexico's increasingly bloody drug wars between rival cartels, it is the first time an American government employee has been killed.

President Barack Obama has expressed outrage over the killings, and Mexican President Felipe Calderon promised a swift investigation.

The three died during one of the bloodiest weekends so far in Mexico, with nearly 50 people murdered in gang violence. Another 13 people were killed in a gangland shoot-out in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco on Sunday.

The US consulate employee and her husband, identified as Lesley Enriquez, 35, and Athur Redelfs, 39, were shot to death on Saturday 13 March 2010 in their car near the Santa Fe International bridge linking Ciudad Juarez with El Paso, Texas.

According to the newspaper Diario de Juarez, gunmen chased the couple's white van shortly after 2 p.m. on Saturday, shooting at the vehicle until it swerved out of control, crashing into oncoming traffic near the bridge.

Ms Enriquez, who was four months pregnant with the couple's second child, was shot in the head, while her husband was shot in his neck and arm. When police officers arrived at the victims' bullet-riddled Toyota van, they discovered the couple's baby daughter crying disconsolately in the back seat, Diario de Juarez reported. At first the officers thought the seven-month-old girl had been wounded, but she was unharmed.

"This is shocking to everyone," Reuben Redelfs, the brother of the victim, told the Washington Post. "People need to know what's going on down here. It's become a war zone ..... It's just horrible what's happening."

At approximately the same time, the third victim, Jorge Alberto Salcido Ceniceros, 37, was killed as he travelled in another part of Juarez. The gunmen boxed in the man's car, shot him and wounded his two children, aged four and seven, according to media reports.

The attacks occurred as the US State Department was taking the unusual step of authorizing U.S. government employees at Ciudad Juarez and five other American consulates in northern Mexico to send their families out of the region because of concerns over the increasing bloodshed. That announcement was in the works before the murders, officials said.

President Obama was "deeply saddened and outraged" by the killings, the White House said.

"He extends his condolences to the families and condemns these attacks on consular and diplomatic personnel serving at our foreign missions," a White House statement said. "In concert with Mexican authorities, we will work tirelessly to bring their killers to justice."

Mr Calderon's office said the Mexican president "expresses his indignation" and "his sincerest condolences to the families of the victims." He "reiterated the Mexican government's unwavering compromise to resolve these grave crimes."

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton extended her sympathy to the families of the victims and said Washington would continue to work with the Mexican government to bring drug traffickers to justice.

"These appalling assaults on members of our own State Department family are, sadly, part of a growing tragedy besetting many communities in Mexico," said Mrs Clinton. Washington was committed to: "work closely with the government of President Calderon to cripple the influence of trafficking organizations at work in Mexico," she said.

Ciudad Juarez a city of 1.3 million people just across the US border from El Paso, is at the epicentre of the drug wars that have devastated Mexico over recent years. In the last three years alone, 15,000 people have been murdered, many of them in turf wars between rival drug gans.

At least 18,000 people have been killed in Mexico since December 2006, when Mexican President Felipe Calderon deployed the army to battle increasingly powerful traffickers.

Alarmed by the brazen shootings, the State Department announced Sunday that employees at a string of U.S. consular offices along the Mexican border — Tijuana, Nogales, Ciudad Juárez, Nuevo Laredo, Monterrey and Matamoros — could evacuate their families to the United States.

The consular agency in Reynosa was temporarily closed in recent weeks after violence in that city grew.

Strengthening its travel warning for Mexico, the State Department said, "While most crime victims are Mexican citizens, the uncertain security situation poses serious risks for U.S. citizens as well."

Americans Are Not Safe In Mexico.

Agustin "Bobby" Salcedo was only 33-years-old and a member of the El Monte, California School Board. He and five other men were shot dead execution-style in Dorango, Mexico early Thursday morning, New Years Eve 2009. He did not live to see The Year 2010.

There is no reasonable explanation for this senseless act of violence. Was it a random act of violence in a narco-trafficing drug war, or was Bobby targeted because he was an American in a poor Mexican drug-ridden town? No demand for a ransom was made. Only Bobby and his male dinner guests were taken from the restaurant-bar. Bobby and his wife were having dinner with some of her former medical school classmates in a restaurant.

Armed men burst in and snatched Bobby and the five men. The
bodies of all six were found later Thursday alongside a canal. All
had been shot, execution-style, in the head. There were dozens of spent bullet casings found at the site. Why so many bullets for six men? What kind of message was this intended to send, and to whom?

Bobby Salcedo is believed to be the first U.S. elected official killed in the 4-year-old spasm of carnage in Mexico.

In a statement, Rep. Judy Chu, D-El Monte, urged authorities in
Durango to find the gunmen.

"The Salcedo family, and indeed the entire El Monte and South El Monte
community, deserve answers, and we will work hard to ensure that they
get those answers and the justice they deserve," Chu said.

"I have directed my staff in the district and in Washington to make
sure the Salcedo family receives the assistance they require at this
difficult time, and to work with our contacts in the Department of
State and U.S. consulate authorities in Mexico to make sure there is appropriate coordination with Mexican law enforcement as the
investigation develops," she said.

"From all accounts right now, it sounds random," Bobby Salcedo's brother,
Carlos, said. "There is no reason for my brother to be targeted."

Bobby who was also the assistant principal of instruction at El
Monte High School, arrived in the Mexican city of Gomez Palacio
earlier this week. The city of 240,000 is in the state of Durango and is the hometown of his wife, Betzy. Bobby was born and raised in the Los Angeles area.

The couple had been married less than two years. Betzy Salcedo was a physician in Mexico. She has been preparing to take the medical board exam so she can practice medicine in the United States.

In November, 2009 Bobby was re-elected to a new term on the school board
of the El Monte City School District. Before becoming a school administrator, he was a teacher. He taught world history, government and economics.

Raging drug violence and rampant corruption have been a major problem
in Durango, which has been described as a tense, rough state. The
local Catholic archbishop, Hector Gonzalez Martinez, recently
described the region as one where gunmen "own the night," They have no respect for law and order or any authority figures. They have even threatening priests.

The U.S. State Department on 5 January 2010 called on Mexico to conduct a thorough investigation into the slaying of Bobby Solcedo. The FBI and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced promises of federal and state assistance.

A spokesman for a U.S. Consulate in Mexico said he expects Mexican authorities to conduct a "strong investigation" into the murder.

"This has created a lot of interest on both sides of the border, and when there is public focus and media interest, that bears down on pressure," said Brian Quigley, spokesman for the U.S. Consulate General in Monterrey, Mexico, which has jurisdiction over the region where the slayings occurred.

"Bobby Salcedo was a true leader who dedicated his life to serving his community," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said. "His death is profoundly tragic and we join the El Monte and South El Monte community in expressing our sadness. On behalf of all Californians, Maria and I send our deepest condolences to Bobby's family, friends and to the community he loved so much. California stands ready to assist in the investigation in any way possible."

U.S. authorities do not have the jurisdiction to investigate crimes in other countries. Instead, they can only monitor another country's investigation and provide assistance as requested, according to Adriana Gallegos, a press deputy with the State Department's division of Consular Affairs.

State Department spokeswoman Virginia Staab said U.S. officials have pressed Mexican law enforcement agencies to act swiftly and prevent the contamination of DNA and other evidence.

"We provide a lot of support to the Mexican government," Staab said. "We've let them know we have a close interest in this case and we are taking the matter very seriously."

State Department officials said they have been in contact with authorities in Durango. Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton has not been briefed on the incident, Staab said.

Laura Eimiller, a spokeswoman in the FBI's Los Angeles office, said the FBI would assist "with whatever investigation needs to take place in this country."

Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Judy Chu, D-El Monte, is urging action on the part of both the U.S. and Mexican governments, writing letters to the State Department and Mexican Embassy.

Chu said the United States shares some of the responsibility for addressing the drug-related crime wave that has devastated Mexico in recent years.

"Ninety percent of the cocaine, heroin and meth that is used in the United States comes from Mexico," she said.

Next week Chu will introduce a congressional resolution honoring Salcedo's work that will likely urge her colleagues in Congress to do more to address the Mexican crime wave, her spokesman Fred Ortega said.

She plans to deliver a flag flown over the U.S. Capitol to Salcedo's family before the educator's funeral Thursday, 7 January.

"He was such an important person in our community. He gave so much. I talked to him only two weeks ago and I said, `how can you be campaigning, serve on the board of education, be an assistant principal, and be finishing your PhD all at the same time?' He said to me, `I do it for education, I want to give people the same chance I got through education,"' Chu said.

Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, and Assemblyman Mike Eng, D-El Monte, both honored Salcedo in the state Senate and Assembly, respectively, Monday, 3 January.

As others have, they praised him as a rising star who did much to improve the lives of students and residents in the community.

"Many influential people want justice for Bobby Salcedo and his family and this community," Eng said at a vigil for Bobby.

A spokesman for Sen. Barbara Boxer said the senator sends condolences to Salcedo's family.

"Senator Boxer sends her deepest condolences to the Salcedo family," Boxer spokesman Zachary Coile said in a written statement. "This senseless act of violence is a heartbreaking reminder of the dangers posed by the drug cartels."

Neither Boxer nor Sen. Dianne Feinstein have publicly commented on the case.

Betzy Salcedo cited an old Mexican saying: He who doesn't owe anything has nothing to fear. She always figured that people who had nothing to do with drug trafficking would not be targets in the country they loved.

One can follow the gruesome news out of Mexico, much of it involving the government's ongoing war against powerful drug cartels, yet still feel a sense of immunity -- that "it can't happen to me," that the dangers are remote. It is a common thought among many Mexicans, a defense mechanism, perhaps.

But now Betzy Salcedo and her family are bitter. Mexico has become a poison to them.

The Salcedos and their companions had ended up at the Iguanas Ranas bar on Miguel Aleman Boulevard in Gomez Palacio on Wednesday night.

By day and to the uninitiated, the strip may seem harmless enough. There are dives with names like Mens Club-Boomerang, but also taco stands and convenience stores. The Iguanas Ranas is painted almost whimsically with, as its name suggests, bright yellow and green frogs and iguanas.

At night, however, the environment shifts. "We don't even go out at night anymore. We are exposed to everything," said Gerardo Gonzalez, the bar's accountant.

Routinely, he said, gunmen commandeer cars from passing motorists, demand bribes, enter bars to lord over the patrons. "We are living in times of terrible, daily crime," said the lifelong Gomez Palacio resident, whose nephew was kidnapped and shot to death on Christmas Eve.

It didn't used to be like this. Until about two years ago, the Iguanas Ranas admitted families -- parents with their children. But then the violence started. About that time, several men were kidnapped from the place and killed.

This year the bar has endured a bomb threat, an extortion threat and robbery. Things have gotten so rough that the owner is considering shutting it down, Gonzalez said.

Betzy Salcedo, 26, remembers the days of her youth, when she and friends could go out at any time of day or night without thinking twice. "That's all completely gone," she said.

Bobby Salcedo's brother Juan, a banker in the Los Angeles area, added: "I've read all the stories. Sixteen bodies found here, bodies there. But I always thought it was [happening to] bad people. You mind your own business and you'll be fine."

Gomez Palacio is an industrial city in the northern part of Durango, one of the deadliest states in Mexico last year as two drug gangs battled for territory. That battle is part of the nationwide fight involving drug traffickers and the government that has claimed more than 15,000 lives in three years.

Law And Order Flees Mexico. Illegals Run to USA, Mainly California.

FELIPE ANGELES, Mexico — Four hooded men smashed in the door to the adobe home of an 80-year-old farmer, handcuffing his frail wrists and driving him to a makeshift jail. They released him after relatives and friends paid a $9,000 ransom, which included his life savings.

Many people from Felipe Angeles left to escape the kidnalling and the violence.
The kidnapping was a dismal story of cruelty and heartbreak, familiar all across Mexico, but with a new twist: the daughter of this victim lived in the United States and was able to wire money to help assemble his ransom, the farmer, who insisted that he not be identified by name, said in an interview.

A string of similar kidnappings, singling out people with children or spouses in the United States, so panicked this village in the state of Zacatecas that many people boarded up their homes and headed north, some legally and some not, seeking havens with relatives in California and other American states.

“The relatives of Mexicans in the United States have become a new profit center for Mexico’s crime industry,” said Rodolfo García Zamora, a professor at the Autonomous University of Zacatecas who studies migration trends. “Hundreds of families are emigrating out of fear of kidnap or extortion, and Mexicans in the U.S. are doing everything they can to avoid returning. Instead, they’re getting their relatives out.”

The reported rush into the United States by people from the state of Zacatecas is another sign that Mexico’s growing lawlessness is a volatile new factor affecting the flow of migrant workers across America’s border. The violence is adding a new layer of uncertainty to the always fraught issue of Mexican emigration, already in flux because of the economic downturn in the United States.

Academics and policy makers on both sides of the border, who are watching closely for shifts in migration patterns, say it is too early to know the long-term impact of either the drug-related violence or the loss of jobs by thousands of migrant workers in the United States. But so far, earlier predictions of an exodus of out-of-work Mexicans back to their hometowns seem to have been premature.

Instead, it appears that the pattern in the state of Zacatecas — where many people have family in the United States — may be a good indicator of what is happening throughout Mexico. The country’s spiraling criminality appears not only to be keeping some Mexicans in the United States, but it may also be leading more Mexicans to flee their country. “It’s a toxic combination right now,” said Denise Dresser, a political scientist based in Mexico City. “Mexicans north of the border are facing joblessness and persecution, but in their own country the government can’t provide basic security for many of its citizens.”

The extraordinary increase in violence in Mexico in recent years has resulted in part from President Felipe Calderón’s war against drug lords. His campaign to arrest the leaders of the cartels and the military officers and law enforcement officials they have compromised has unleashed factional fighting among rival drug groups, as well as violence against the government.

Traditionally, most of Mexico’s criminal violence has been concentrated in northern border cities like Tijuana where cocaine enters the United States. But law and order have been deteriorating in many regions; and heartland states like Michoacán, Jalisco and Zacatecas, which are the homes of millions of migrants to the United States and are longtime drug smuggling routes, are now also reporting spikes in killings and kidnappings.

Jerez, a town of 60,000 a few miles northwest of Felipe Angeles in Zacatecas, was until recently a calm place, largely untouched by organized crime, said Abel Márquez Haro, a grocery wholesaler.

But recently, scores of men driving Chevrolet Suburbans and carrying automatic rifles established a menacing presence, threatening residents on the street and extorting businesspeople. The identities of the men remain a mystery, but many people in the town say they assume they are traffickers who have abandoned another Mexican state, perhaps to avoid an army crackdown.

On Nov. 10, a dozen of the gunmen arrived at Mr. Márquez’s warehouse, dragging him out, bashing him and several employees with rifle butts and then hauling him away. He was held blindfolded for 30 hours as the kidnappers demanded $500,000 for his freedom, Mr. Márquez said in an interview. Eventually his family agreed to a smaller ransom, Mr. Márquez said. When his son delivered the money, the kidnappers released Mr. Márquez but seized his son, demanding a second ransom, which the family also paid, Mr. Márquez said.

He is trying to sell his business, he said, and hopes to relocate to some safer city in Mexico. But he said that a friend who witnessed his kidnapping was so rattled that he had since gone to live with a brother in California.

Residents described several other recent kidnappings and extortions across the state of Zacatecas: a cattleman held until a daughter in Las Vegas sent money to help pay a $35,000 ransom; a rancher who was tied to a tree during a five-day period of captivity; a car-parts dealer who avoided capture by immediately paying gunmen the ransom they demanded.

Those who live in the region say such crimes — and the attention they receive on Spanish-language television in the United States — appear to have frightened not only those who live here year-round. Most years at Christmastime, hundreds of men in cowboy hats who work north of the border return to Jerez, jamming the streets with pickup trucks and cars with California and Illinois license plates and reuniting with old friends and family in the town square.

This holiday season, Jerez and surrounding towns have had few migrants return. And demographers based in Jalisco and Michoacán said in interviews that few migrants had returned to those states either.

Those reports surprised many who study immigration, including Douglas S. Massey, a sociology professor at Princeton University.

“What I thought would be happening this Christmas is that more migrants would go home to Mexico than usual and just stay there,” Dr. Massey said. Surveys of Mexican migrants that he conducted last summer in North Carolina after a large poultry processing plant closed there showed that “people were heading back to Mexico because they couldn’t find another job” and because federal raids had spread so much fear among migrants, he said.

“People were saying, ‘If it’s a matter of surviving day to day, I’d rather do that in Mexico,’ ” Dr. Massey said.

Other experts also expected to see larger than usual flows of Mexicans home this Christmas. A caucus of Mexican legislators who specialize in migration issues predicted in October that some three million Mexicans might return from the United States as a result of the recession. But the same group reported in a study released in late December that in fact fewer migrants seemed to have returned this holiday season than in previous years, in part because of what they delicately termed “the insecurity in Mexico.”

And in Felipe Angeles, the flow of people ran north rather than south at year-end.

Residents here were so frightened by the kidnappings of the octogenarian and of about a dozen other people who lived in or near this village in recent months that hundreds of them set up a roadblock with their tractors and trucks on the main highway here last month. They demanded that the army send troops to protect them. Soldiers were deployed to patrol the town for a few days, but that did not leave the residents feeling secure.

“The kidnappers were targeting people with relatives in the United States, because they knew these families have money,” said Santana Lujan, a local farmer who participated in the blockade. “It’s left a psychosis of fear and worry.”


A teacher who spoke on the condition of anonymity estimated that of the town’s 400 houses, about 200 were now vacant, with 50 of them emptied in recent weeks. About half of the departing families left for the United States, he said, while the rest sought safety elsewhere in Mexico.

In an interview, the 80-year-old man who was kidnapped trembled when describing his six-day captivity. He said he was repeatedly kicked by his captors.

His daughter has since urged him to go live with her in the United States, but he said he felt too old to emigrate.

“But many people have left,” he said, “and more are going to leave

Crime Wave Crests on Rosarito Beach, Baja California.

Surfers talk endlessly about big waves. That is to say, their size, their intensity, their roll. And crime waves are no exception.

Baja California's surfers along Rosarito Beach, have been rehashing a series of recent armed attacks on foreigners, many of whom had been frequenting the beaches here just south of Tijuana for years.

"It's all we talk about," said Doug Wampler, 55, who has surfed Baja's waves since 1967.

Pat Weber, 47, who runs the San Diego Surfing Academy, was attacked by two armed men in ski masks while camping with his girlfriend on Oct. 23 on a remote bluff near here. They fired shots at his camper to get them out, then put a gun to his head, sexually assaulted his girlfriend and made away with his laptop, camera equipment and cash.

Shaken, Weber, who estimates that he has brought 130 groups to Baja beaches on surfing trips over the years, has vowed never to return to Baja, where he said he had been surfing since 1984. The worst he had to put up with previously, he said, were occasional encounters with police officers demanding bribes.


"It's the end of an era for me," he said. "No more Mexico."

A month earlier, on Labor Day, three surfers from San Diego said they were pulled over near Tijuana by a car with flashing lights. The attackers — who might have been lawmen, outlaws or, as is sometimes the case in Mexico, both — stole the surfers' car at gunpoint, they said.

"I'm never going back," said one of the victims, Roger. He said he was made to kneel down and then a gun was put to his head. "It's just unbelievable how bad it is down there," he said.

In another robbery, on Sept. 16, three surfers, who were camping in the same area where Weber was attacked, reported being held up by two armed men.

"Until authorities get a handle on the situation, we urge anyone planning or considering a trip to Baja to be aware of these recent events, be careful and be safe," the San Diego chapter of the Surfrider Foundation told members recently.

"It could happen to anyone," said Brian Ramirez, 37, of Mission Viejo, California. But he said the waves were still worth the risks.

Wampler said that surfers are targets because they are becoming more prosperous, driving luxury vehicles and carrying wads of cash. "The surfing population is aging and they have gobs of money now," he said.

Just how high the crime rate has risen is a subject of debate. Mexican officials call the recent crimes isolated incidents. A spokesman for the American Consulate in Tijuana told a local newspaper, "We're still establishing whether or not this is a trend."

But most officials acknowledge that the high-profile crimes have at least created a perception problem. "Security for tourists is one of my main concerns," said Hugo Torres, the newly elected mayor of Rosarito and a prominent hotelier, who acknowledges a surge in crime but dismisses reports of a Wild West atmosphere in Baja as overblown.

Earlier this year, President Felipe Calderón sent troops to Baja California as part of his nationwide crackdown on the narcotics cartels that control huge swaths of the countryside. Getting to some surf stops still requires passing camouflage-clad soldiers, who search cars for guns and drugs.

"We need a safe zone from Tijuana all the way down to Ensenada," said Torres, who as a mayor has little ability to quell the problem without federal aid. "We need tourist police who speak English and a 24-hour ombudsman to help tourists."

Torres, who surfs, said he values the long connection Baja California has had with surfers. "The surfers have been visiting us for more than 50 years," he said. "Surfers may be only 5 to 7 percent of our total visitors, but just about everybody who comes down here knows a surfer or has been one or likes to see them in the waves."

Surfers have not been the only targets. Recent foreign victims have included fishermen and the crew for a participant in a road rally. Then there are the many residents whose encounters with criminals never make the papers.

We have chaos here," said Nancy Conroy, editor of the Gringo Gazette, a local newspaper geared toward expatriates. "It's very dangerous."

When Conroy's paper reports crimes, she said she is criticized by those building and selling the luxury condominiums along the coast. Too negative, they say, and not representative of the tranquil lives most expatriates live in Baja.

Conroy said that an e-mail message circulated among the developers suggesting that one of the recent attacks was made up to scare surfers away from Baja and keep the crowds down. That message appears to be false, according to interviews, although that has not stopped many from believing it.

"If one of them was fabricated maybe all these stories were," said Gabriel Robles, president of the Association of Tourist Developers of Baja California, who forwarded the e-mail message to his members. "One gets reports of a lot of stuff, but I can't say how much of it happened. I'm not a cop."

Robles said he was not trying to play down the crime problem. "Our point is that the authorities need to resolve it," he said. "No one is trying to avoid it or pretend it's not true."

Weber, who reported his run-in with Baja's criminal elements to the Ensenada police, said he was saving some evidence for those who doubt his story. He will replace his motor home's shattered window but fill the bullet hole that pierced the vehicle with a wine cork, he said.

"It will be a reminder of what happened," he said, "and a reminder that I'm lucky to be alive."