For ammunition, some customers came from two hours away. For handguns, a group of police officers rented a van and made an eight-hour trek. For a precision rifle, an insurance worker drove nine hours overnight.

There are only two legal gun stores in all of Mexico — making them destinations for customers from every corner of the country and an embodiment of Mexico’s conflicted relationship with firearms.

The Constitution enshrines the right to own them, and there are millions of weapons in civilian hands, with a black market flooded by American-made guns. But the two legal stores, military-run and tightly regulated, are emblematic of government efforts to better control Mexico’s guns.

Private security guards, sport shooters and others make strenuous trips to the stores, which look like a cross between a D.M.V. office and a small museum. Applicants need to present nearly a dozen documents at the stores — once they’ve waited a few months for approval to buy a gun.

Cristian Ulices Ocaranza Marquez, 32, a municipal police officer, rented a van with six other officers and drove eight hours from his home to Mexico City for guns. His state, Colima, has one of the highest homicide rates in the country, and he is barred from bringing his work gun home, so he applied for a handgun, waited three months for approval and paid $518. (The average monthly salary in Mexico is roughly $320.)

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