No Bueno

First off, I want to state that I don't view, "vigilantes" as necessarily a bad thing.  Vigilantes appear when governments that are paid to provide protection and - more importantly - to uphold the rule of law, don't do their jobs.  Governments and their compliant media cohorts affix a negative connotation to vigilantes, as the vigilantes are doing the job expected of the government.  And governments don't like competition.
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You may have heard about the groups of Mexican citizens that have formed vigilante groups to fight against local drug cartels.  The make-up of these groups has been reported as diversely as being made up of local citizens tired of the death and destruction wrought by the cartels, to rival cartels banding together to fight the big dog in the region.

Whoever these people are, they grew quickly.  One group started this, and it spread across an entire state of Mexico.  Way cool.

It appears as though it is more likely that these groups are made up of common folk, as the local and federal Mexican governments have signed a truce of sorts -

The Mexican government has signed an agreement with the vigilante groups that spread across the western state of Michoacan to fight drug traffickers, opening the way for the organizations to gain legal status.

That last part is a bit troubling.  It seems counter-intuitive.  These vigilantes are upholding the law, but are doing so illegally.  If they gain legal status, then they're just a part of the corrupt, ineffective government that caused them to organize in the first place.  If things are "all good" now, why doesn't the government just come in and do their expected job?

“These corps are temporary and will be under the command of the authority established under the applicable legal regulations,” the Government Secretariat said in a statement. 

Self-defense group leaders will have to submit membership lists, which will be evaluated and registered by the Defense Secretariat, to join the corps.

Yeah, that whole list thing... no bueno.  I'm sure that the upstanding, competent government bureaucrats that are evaluating the lists will make sure that the lists don't fall into the hands of the powerful drug cartels.

None of these guys will suddenly go missing.  Piles of heads - not attached to bodies - won't suddenly start showing up all over Michoacan.

Naw, corruption, pay-offs and extortion of government officials NEVER happens in Mexico.

At least that's what the Mexican government says, so it must be true.
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A lesson to be learned here:  In Mexico, you are allowed to own either a .22LR gun or a .38spl gun.  That's it.  One gun only, and limited amounts of ammunition.

These vigilantes have much more than that.  The pictures I've seen show them with ARs, AKs and other such similar weapons.

If they had followed their governments "reasonable" gun laws, at best, it would have taken much longer to achieve what they've done and make themselves safe.  At worse, they'd be slaughtered like sheep because they'd have been outgunned.

I'm just sayin'...

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