Has the abduction and murder of the American tourists changed the way you perm residents are treated? I know it was in a different area of Mexico but do you and your lady need to take any extra precautions?
Down here in La Paz, no. La Paz is consistently rated in the top five (usually #1 or 2) safest cities in Mexico. Part of what helps is that while there is a retail drug trade, the cartels pretty much ignore this city and for the most part, the entire state of Baja California Sur. There is no manufacturing of drugs in BCS. Nor is the peninsula part of the transportation system taking the stuff north to the US. That said, the border area is not necessarily the safest areas in Mexico.
The cartels for the most part don't give a crap about tourists or ex-pats unless they get involved in the drug trade. If you are going to be targeted, it's usually the local turds who are just trying to make a living.
I follow a few Baja centric FaceBook groups that focus on travel and road conditions. I shake my head at the number of people who are looking for hotels with secure parking. They have no issues parking in the lot of an American hotel/motel with no security but as soon as they cross the border, they think that everybody is interested in stealing their vehicle or what's in the vehicle. It would seem that Americans and Canadians who have never truly been to Mexico (a week in an all inclusive resort is. not spending time in Mexico - it's time in a sanitized holiday location). What you see on American or Canadian TV is only negative. The cartels rule the country. The army and police are corrupt. You are not safe unless you are in a gated community. That's all rubbish. You are safe in Mexico. In our first foray to La Paz, last winter, we had to park on the street for the entire 6 months we were here. Not a single problem. Not even somebody carving "Wash Me!" in the dust on our vehicle. We've been parking in a gated yard since we've been here for the simple reason that it came with the home (I fucking hate this uber narrow gate - I've run into it a couple of times). We didn't look for this kind of parking. Our Canadian neighbours and our landlord seem to think it's dangerous to park outside the fence. Like I said though, our experience from last year says it's no problem to park on the street.
For the most part, nobody is going to randomly come up to you and shoot you. Technically, firearms are not legal in Mexico without a difficult to obtain permit. Once you have a permit, there is only one location in the entire country to legally buy a firearm. It is located in Mexico City and purchases are in person only. And, no. Mexico, like Canada, doesn't give a crap if you have a permit in your home state. It is not legal to bring a firearm across the international border. If you try, and especially if you do not declare it, you are looking at seizure of the weapon, a huge fine and jail time (NASCAR driver Kyle Busch has recently been sentenced to 5 year in jail - I'm guessing he won't be coming back to Mexico anytime soon).
A joke down here is there are only two groups of people allowed to have firearms, the army/police and the cartels.
Mexican people are warm and welcoming. When we came down to check out La Paz last year, we made the decision to live like a local and not like a tourist. We walked every where at a variety of times of day. In the dark in the evening, during the day. We said hi to many. We became part of the neighbourhood. We are in a different neighbourhood this year and again, have become part of the local scene. We will be moving to a different neighbourhood soon (lease is running out - moving closer to our ideal location). We love the locals. We are trying to learn Spanish. You get a lot more love from the locals if you at least try.
Anyways, back to Staci's question -- for us and the other ex-pats down here, activity closer to the border doesn't really affect us. We just keep on being.