BamaD
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Joined: 2/27/2005
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ORIGINAL: jlf1961
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What the hell is wrong with America. Its still like the wild west over there.
No it isn't, not at all, the press just makes it seem that way.
BTW , the wild west wasn't the wild west.
The worst of the boom towns weren't as bad a Flint, Detroit, and Chicago.
Yea, there was dare I say it...gun control. And yes, even though the so-called 'Fight at the Ok corral' was not really about the Clanton's...not giving up their guns.
Yep, as usual it wasn't about guns, it was about control.
It was a way to disarm those not in power and give those in power control.
Actually, the Clantons ran with a group known as "The Cowboys" wanted criminals on both sides of the border as well as in New Mexico, Texas, and Colorado. When the Earp's became the law in Tombstone, the 'no guns inside town limits" ordinance was already on the books, as it was in many towns in the 'Old West.'
The ordinance was not so much as to keep one group in control, but to keep drunks from randomly shooting guns at whatever they damn well pleased.
As to why the Earp's did not attempt to arrest the Clantons or any of the gang, it was quite simple, the Earp brothers owned parts of three of the towns Saloons and gambling establishments, and made their money not from being the town marshals, but from those businesses.
The entire 'feud' between them and the Clanton McClaury gang was more Hollywood and pulp novel hype than actual history.
The entire gunfight incident began when the local mayor made a fuss about the Clanton brothers being armed inside the town limits (there is some evidence to support the idea that the mayor might have had more to do with instigating the gun fight for financial gain.)
Virgil Earp made it clear that he did not want any problems and no one is really sure who fired the first shot.
The Earps were tried and acquitted after the incident.
In the months following, Morgan was shot in the back and killed, Virgil was wounded by a shot gun blast and lost one arm.
The story goes that Wyatt became a US Marshal and hunted down the men responsible, which is only partially true. He did hunt them down, but while Hollywood portrays him as some avenging demon who killed all involved, history indicates that many of the gang were arrested and tried in territorial court.
It is also true that there were about 30 US Marshals out to break the gang's hold and criminal activities. Some of the gang members killed that were attributed to Earp were actually killed by other Marshals, since at the times of their deaths, Earp was giving testimony in court.
Other cities that had the "no guns in town limits" were Dodge City Kansas, Abilene Kansas, Denver Colorado, Deadwood Gulch, Dallas Tx, and Fort Griffith Texas (where Wyatt Earp first met Doc Holliday.)
The ordinance was actually directed at handguns, and the gun owners usually turned them in at the front desk of whatever hotel or boarding house they were staying in while in town, or the bar keep at the saloon they were drinking in, and when they were leaving, they collected their guns and went their merry way.
The cattle towns of Kansas had these ordinances because the Texas cow hands tended to get rather rowdy at the end of the drive and as soon as they were paid off, promptly drank and screwed the money away.
And it has been common knowledge since the invention of the gun, that booze and guns did not mix.
The Dodge City ordinance was passed after a gun fight in a local saloon in which two card players got into an argument about the card game, they chased each other around the card table and each emptied their pistols, without either of them being hit.
However, the bartender was hit, the piano player was shot and killed, two prostitutes were wounded, one along with her client when a bullet passed through the blanket being used for a door and managed to wound both of them while the prostitute was administrating to the needs of her client.
As far as the tendency in the old west to carry pistols, it was not so much for defense as practicality. Cowboys carried pistols in case of their horse being spooked and them getting hung up in the stirrup, or to try and stop a stampede.
While trying to shoot a spooked horse hung in the stirrup is a last ditch act of desperation, it was the only chance some men had.
Another point, most shoot outs (unlike hollywood portrayals) were at ranges of 20 feet or less.
So the point that the wild west was actually more the tame west with short periods of chaos is actually quite accurate.
With the routine gun related crimes in some modern american cities, most of the gun fighters would have steered clear.
Also, contrary to Hollywood, there were only two range wars of note, one in Wyoming, one in New Mexico.
As for the gunfighter Tom Horn, he rarely faced the men he killed down in the street, if ever, he preferred to kill from ambush.
Wyatt Earp's prowess as a gun fighter is less deserved than many think, he was an average shot with a pistol, and slower on the draw than most, winning most of his gunfights because the other guy rushed and missed.
Yes Earp won because he stayed calm.
He may have only been in two gunfights, as such, in his whole life, maybe one in Dodge and the gunfight in the empty lot across the street from the OK Corral.
The histories I have read indicated the "no guns in the city limits " laws only applied to parts of town. For example in Dodge the border was the railroad tracks. In Tombstone it was Front Street. They were only intended to control the rowdy cowboys getting drunk and firing indescriminatly. They were not intended to inconveinence the citizenry. The Earps had arrested some of the cowboys but couldn't get a conviction. Curly Bill got off in the killing of Marshal White (town marshal, not US. he was BTW in his twenties not the older man he is normaly seen as in film) The Earps were acquitted in part because the sheriff over played his hand and swore that the cowboys were unarmed at the time of the fight. The Earps lawyer broke that story by pointing out that everyone but Wyatt was wounded. The gunfight took place at no greater range than 15 ft.
A backdrop to the conflict was that Behan and Wyatt were political rivals which added fuel to the fire. It was said that during the heyday of the TV western that more people were killed every week than in the whole period in reality.
_____________________________
Government ranges from a necessary evil to an intolerable one. Thomas Paine
People don't believe they can defend themselves because they have guns, they have guns because they believe they can defend themselves.
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RE: Yet another unarmed black man shot to death by police - 
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