Huff & Puff: Did the Wild West Have More Gun Control Than We Do Today?
Writing for the Huffington Post, Adam Winkler, a professor of law at UCLA, asks the loaded question (no pun intended) “Did the Wild West Have More Gun Control Than We Do Today?”
Much of this is just a plug for his book “Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America,” and Winkler throws a few curve balls such as this passage:
“Gun control advocates fear — and gun rights proponents sometimes hope — the Second Amendment will transform our cities into modern-day versions of Dodge. Yet this is all based on a widely shared misunderstanding of the Wild West. Frontier towns — places like Tombstone, Deadwood, and Dodge — actually had the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation.”
Winkler should stick to law, because his efforts with history are clearly not his calling. Does anyone expect the movie versions of Deadwood, Dodge or Tombstone to be accurate? But he tries to lay out the “facts” in a way that implies that most people actually believe everything they see on TV and in the movies.
Then Winkler switches gears and ends with this passage:
“The story of guns in America is far more complex and surprising than we’ve often been led to believe. We’ve always had a right to bear arms, but we’ve also always had gun control. Even in the Wild West, Americans balanced these two and enacted laws restricting guns in order to promote public safety. Why should it be so hard to do the same today?”
The idea is that we suddenly see the light, and say, “you are right. If they could have gun control in Deadwood, then we should have it here.”
What he forgets to mention is that these towns weren’t as lawless as the movies implies. He says, “Many frontier towns, including Tombstone, Arizona – the site of the infamous ‘Shootout at the OK Corral’ – also barred the carrying of guns openly.” It did, but unless you missed the movies, most people know that the shootout occurred because someone broke that law. In other words criminals ignored the law – imagine if criminals did that today, but wait they do!
LA Times: Gun laws were tougher in old Tombstone
This past weekend The Los Angeles Times tried to present an image that gun laws were tougher in old Tombstone than it has today. Yes, it’s true that much of what you see about “the old west” is in fact myth. The story is right about that part.
Shootings didn’t happen at noon, there weren’t nearly as many colorful bank robberies as in the movies, and of course everyone didn’t wear a six shooter on their hips. But the article is trying to present Arizona as some sort of modern day “wild west” because of the gun laws in the state that the paper declares “are among the most lenient in the nation.”
Only buried in the copy however, is it made clear that Arizona is actually pretty safe. Yes, the Tucson shooting has put Arizona in the spotlight. But consider that every day people are shot in senseless acts of violence in Chicago and Washington, two cities that have among the strictest gun laws in the country. Those places might not be the wild west – they’re far worse in some neighborhoods.
Arizona Republic Calls For “Middle Ground on Guns”
This week in an editorial responding to the tale of two gun laws, The Arizona Republic argues that a middle ground needs to be found. The paper suggests that Chicago’s absolute ban on handguns had been too strict, but also questions the Arizona law with an interesting choice of words:
“Arizona, meanwhile, has enacted some of the most liberalizing gun laws of any state in recent years. They include permitting gun-owners to carry weapons in places like restaurants and bars and, still more sensationally, allowing most people over 21 to carry a weapon, open or concealed, without requiring a permit. That latter law is scheduled to go into effect July 29.”
While this might be extreme to some, it brings up an interesting point – one that the editors only touch upon. Chicago has become a wild west with mob rule practically in place. Yet Arizona, which was truly part of the real Old Wild West, doesn’t have nearly the same amount of gun violence. However, Arizona faces a threat as criminal elements from Mexico are causing problem in the border region. This isn’t noted in the editorial, and it is important to note as residents in those parts should have the right to be armed as the thugs from south of the border seldom care if innocent people get caught in the cross fire.
