Open source warfare often combines market-based functions to accelerate its innovation rates and expand its operations beyond the primary players. These markets, or bazaars (as I called them) are very efficient. For example: the price of violence plummets as the number of entrants increases and the capacity for violence improves as the market's participants specialize and hone their skills.
Usually, the military/law enforcement response to the surge in the sophistication and quantity of violence is to assume some outside source of training or support rather than something that is the natural byproduct of rapid marketplace development.
So, it's no surprise with the growing availability of the street/prison gangs (Barrio Azteca and the Artistic Assassins) as sources of cheap, violent labor the marketplace is heating up. Note the excellent quotes below from a WaPo article on the growth of the market for contract killings:
"Our intelligence indicates that they kill frequently for a hundred dollars." Joseph Arabit, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in El Paso.
"Within their business of killing, they have surveillance people, intel people and shooters. They have a degree of specialization. They work day in and day out, with a list of people to kill, and they get proficient at it." David Cuthbertson, special agent in charge of the FBI's El Paso division.
"There has to be some form of training going on. I don't know who, and I don't know where. But how else would you explain how they operate?" An anti-gang detective with the El Paso sheriff's department, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.NOTE: Given the economic decline (h/t Michael Panzer) underway in the US, it's only a matter of time before this marketplace of violence moves north. When it arrives, it will take off very quickly with innovation and participation rates that will knock the socks off of observers -- Americans are very innovative and entrepreneurial when pushed.
NOTE2: Mark over at ZenPundit has a good post on the possibility of a mass exodus from Mexico if the open source war going on there continues to evolve/intensify. Think in terms of mass internment relief camps located in Texas, New Mexico and California that never go away.