A clarification

I just wanted to clarify the concept of “gun control” in the frontier West. In Tombstone and other towns that I have researched, the gun ordinances were used as what were called “discretionary laws.” This means the laws would be enforced at the discretion of the officer.

In the past, law officers enjoyed much more discretion in how they performed their jobs. Laws against loitering and vagrancy were used by officers to identify potential threats and remove them from the community. The problem, of course, was that the laws were not always enforced fairly. For example, loitering could be used to prohibit the First Amendment right of assembly. In some areas, these laws were unfairly enforced against minorities. After WWII, the discretionary laws were struck down. While the abuses to these laws were clear, it has had the impact of not allowing officers to remove potential law breakers.

In the weeks before the Tombstone gunfight, the “Tombstone Nugget,” a local newspaper, railed for greater enforcement of the gun laws, complaining they were not being enforced stringently. The problem was that folks could carry guns when they were entering or leaving town, or when they were on their way to a hotel or saloon, where the guns could be checked. This makes the law almost unenforcible since just about anyone could claim they were about to check their guns or leave town.

Many towns did enact gun ordinances, including Dodge City, where drovers had their fun by shooting up the town after a long night of drinking. However, I have never found records of a town where the gun ordinances were stringently enforced in such a way that the officers were wandering the streets, plucking weapons at will. Rather, the laws allowed the officers to identify potential threats and use the gun ordinances to disarm or arrest them before trouble ensued.

The movie “The Unforgiven” creates a different sort of Western myth in contrast to the other myths cited by writer MacDonald. There was an intense belief in the value of life, and very few Westerners could take a life easily and without regret. MacDonald is correct in his assessment that the West was not as wild and rowdy as what we often see in our modern society. However, one reason is that any mass murder attempt would have been stopped quickly because of the quick availability of weapons. It was a time when even society ladies were prone to pulling a small pistol from their pocketbooks if danger arose. If a killer attempted a wild massacre, he would likely face a dozen gun barrels before he could get far in his quest.

One other caution would be that the use of Wikipedia is always hazardous. There are much better sources for real history.

 Casey Tefertiller

by Casey Tefertiller (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 9 comments) on Friday, April 20, 2007 at 9:07:23 AM