Why Does This Make Me Think of The Magnificent Seven?

Why Does This Make Me Think of The Magnificent Seven?
You remember: the movie about the little Mexican village that hires seven American gunfighters to protect them from bandits who are operating with no fear of the federales? From the March 22, 2009 Houston Chronicle:

CUAUHTEMOC, Mexico — Little town, big hell.

That proverb about turmoil in small communities has never seemed truer than in this gangster-besieged village and a neighboring one in the bean fields and desert scrub a long day’s drive south of the Rio Grande.

Since right before Christmas, armed raiders repeatedly have swept into both villages to carry away local men. Government help arrived too late, or not at all.

Terrified villagers — at the urging of army officers who couldn’t be there around the clock — have clawed moats across every access road but one into their communities, hoping to repel the raids.

“This was a means of preservation,” said Ruben Solis, 47, a farmers’ leader in Cuauhtemoc, a collection of adobe and concrete houses called home by 3,700 people. “It’s better to struggle this way than to face the consequences.”

But shortly after midnight last Sunday, villagers said, as many as 15 SUVs loaded with pistoleros attacked nearby San Angel, population 250, and kidnapped five people. Four victims were returned unharmed a few days later. The fifth hostage, a teenage boy, was held to exchange for the intended target the raiders missed, villagers said.

“We have support of the federal forces,” said an official of the dirt-street village. “Security is what we’re lacking.”

After the earthworks were dug in both villages, volunteers manned checkpoints at the remaining open entrances. Those sentinels, however, were removed when it was decided they couldn’t stop a serious attack, anyhow .

“We aren’t able to confront this sort of thing,” Solis said. “We have a few shotguns, some .22 rifles, a few pistols — nothing compared to what they have.”

Mexico has pretty strict gun control laws, from what I understand, that utterly fail to disarm the drug cartels, but seem to work pretty well at preventing their victims from putting up a credible defense. Think about it for a second: in a village of 3700 people, there are probably 1200 adults who could carry a rifle. Even if 100 thugs from the Zetas showed up, even with automatic weapons, the advantage of a defensive position and greater numbers would mean a thorough defeat for the thugs.