Warthog and AndyT are right - from a US perspective, it's a reasonable question. Most of us know that guns are a normal part of everyday life, up and down the Americas. Many of us have friends, expats and citizens, who have guns in their homes, in their businesses, sometimes on their hips. Culturally, it can be a bit odd for us, but that's part of travel, no? And even this European castrati appeaser red gets a kick out of letting off a few rounds in a Nicaraguan backyard every now and then. Bangs are fun. Cordite smells exciting. Coconut shies are made for Colt Commanders.

But that wasn't what created the stir. The noisy reaction was to one poster talking gleefully about murdering another human, both here and in another thread, in a tale smudged with sniggering smilies and home-run high fives. He's either a childish fantasist, a genuine killer, or a divisive troll. Whatever the answer, he's not the kind of fella who's gonna be especially helpful round here. My angry, abusive words were admittedly fuelled by a dozen pints of Guinness, and I'm sorry about the mess that the mods must have found in the morning, but this really ain't the place for that kind of vigilante dick-swinging.

And back to the original question, just in case it was genuine. It's a really bad idea to cross borders, travel foreign countries with an unregistered, concealed weapon. If you get caught, you'll do hard time in a very unpleasant nick. If you don't get caught (which means the gun's stashed, inaccessible and consequently useless), you'll still be worrying about getting caught everytime you see a roadblock, and that will eat into the trip's smiles. And if you get in a situation where you have to use it - well, as has been said - you'll either use it decisively, and have to deal with the corpse and the clean-up, or you'll have it swiped and stuck up your ass. Which will be like being in that unpleasant nick, but without the tenderness...

Make the trip, forget the gun, move quickly through the seedier border towns that spawn the lurid headlines, dive into the Mexican interior and have the un-armed time of your life.

Suerte, Dan

__________________
Que el cielo exista, aunque mi lugar sea el infierno...