Some excerpts might be useful in public debates on gun control.
yeah but you couldn't get foodstamps, healthcare and porn on the internet.
Don’t discount our cultural degradation in describing why it is so good to be old right now.
An armed society, is a polite society...
“During its reckless cowtown period between 1879 and 1885, Caldwell “boasted” a higher murder rate, and loss of more law enforcement officers than other more famous cowtowns. During this period, violence claimed the lives of 18 city marshals, leading a Wichita editor to write, “As we go to press hell is again in session in Caldwell.” “
The author did not do a wide enough survey. Check out the Lincoln County War. All that said, the West was not violent because they all had guns, the violent outbursts in our second-half of the 19th century history, in my opinion, can nearly all be traced back to unbridled greed.
People from the old west would be horrified by the violence in Chicago.
I am guessing he isn’t counting the pre 1876 numbers for Dodge City. In 1873 Dodge had fifteen murders. The problem for Dodge was they didn’t have much law until Wyatt came to town.
I read somewhere that the murder rate in Tombstone around the 1870’s -80’s was quite low by today’s standards.
My thanks to everyone who contributed. When I ran across this passage in an obscure economics article, I wanted to get it into the public record so the facts could be available to others who are helping to protect and advance RKBA especially in the wake of the Aurora mass murder.
Westerns are about good vs. evil, and acting morally when there is no one around you to either keep you honest, or help you out. The protagonist is usually forced to make choices alone. The western frontier is the perfect setting to construct these situations.
Maybe it’s because there was a little “frontier justice” practiced.....my great uncle witnessed a lynching when he was 17 ...some the townsmen took two accused murderers from a jail (who had murdered a farm family and buried them in the manure pile).....and hung them both.
No surprise there. Arm the citizenry and keep the bureaucrats out of the process to “protect the rights” of the bad guys and the bad guys knew that they were likely to be hunted down and killed by the People.