Gun Control In The Wild West
BY Herschel Smith
10 years, 6 months ago
BOB SCHIEFFER: “Does it bother you or does it worry you that we may be going backwards, that we’re going back to the day of the OK Corral and the old West where everybody carried a gun? Is that where we’re headed here?”
FORMER SENATOR RICK SANTORUM (R-Pa.): “You know, everybody romanticizes the OK Corral and all of the things that happened. But gun crimes were not very prevalent back then. Why? Because people carry guns.”
– exchange on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” April 27, 2014
The Hollywood version of the Wild West is at the core of this exchange on Face the Nation, so perhaps it’s time for a history lesson. One-time presidential candidate Rick Santorum asserted that gun crimes were low back then because people had the right to carry guns. But he actually has the story backward.
The 1881 gunfight in Tombstone, Ariz., was actually sparked by an effort to enforce the town’s Ordinance No. 9: “It is hereby declared unlawful to carry in the hand or upon the person or otherwise any deadly weapon within the limits of said city of Tombstone, without first obtaining a permit in writing.”
That’s right, City Marshal Virgil Earp and his brother Wyatt were attempting to enforce a gun-control law that cowboys were evading — a law that was rather common in the West, according to historians.
Notice that the writer didn’t link scholarly reference for the notion that this was “a law that was rather common in the West.” That’s because he can’t, and that’s because it wasn’t.
Notice how the writer’s prose drips with indignation at what he thinks he knows. This is amusing, but you aren’t left as educated about the facts as he claims after reading his prose.
The real story is much more complicated, involving the intrigue of a woman, corrupt deals between alleged bad guys and alleged good guys, threats, innuendo, goading, and the desire for power as an elected official wrapped up into a surreptitious plan that ultimately led to the shootout.
Yes, gun control was a part of the issue, but take note that Americans won’t give up their guns, especially in the face of abusive law enforcement. This is one good takeaway for us all, as well as the fact that snide commentaries from the main stream media aren’t as educated as they think they are.
On April 30, 2014 at 8:24 am, paul b said:
The media gets their information from the movies which are, as every one knows, true.
Bah, they were dropped to many times as infants.
On May 1, 2014 at 5:24 pm, robscottw said:
If any historian tries to make that claim Clayton Cramer will destroy it and him in due course.
On May 2, 2014 at 12:45 pm, Marc Blaydoe said:
They keep harping about the “wild west” but there was no such thing, except in the sensationalist press and dime-store novels. The real “wild-west” wasn’t the “wild west” so how are “we” going to become something that never was?
On May 2, 2014 at 12:47 pm, Marc Blaydoe said:
And “obtaining a permit in writing” was probably not nearly so complicated and difficult to get then as it is today, especially in Maryland!