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yallerdawg

(16,104 posts)
Thu Feb 22, 2018, 03:37 PM Feb 2018

Gun Control Is as Old as the Old West

Contrary to the popular imagination, bearing arms on the frontier was a heavily regulated business

Source: Smithsonian.com, by Matt Jancer

*****

The “Old West” conjures up all sorts of imagery, but broadly, the term is used to evoke life among the crusty prospectors, threadbare gold panners, madams of brothels, and six-shooter-packing cowboys in small frontier towns – such as Tombstone, Deadwood, Dodge City, or Abilene, to name a few. One other thing these cities had in common: strict gun control laws.

*****

Laws regulating ownership and carry of firearms, apart from the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, were passed at a local level rather than by Congress. “Gun control laws were adopted pretty quickly in these places,” says Winkler. “Most were adopted by municipal governments exercising self-control and self-determination.” Carrying any kind of weapon, guns or knives, was not allowed other than outside town borders and inside the home. When visitors left their weapons with a law officer upon entering town, they’d receive a token, like a coat check, which they’d exchange for their guns when leaving town.

*****

The practice was started in Southern states, which were among the first to enact laws against concealed carry of guns and knives, in the early 1800s. While a few citizens challenged the bans in court, most lost. Winkler, in his book Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America, points to an 1840 Alabama court that, in upholding its state ban, ruled it was a state’s right to regulate where and how a citizen could carry, and that the state constitution’s allowance of personal firearms “is not to bear arms upon all occasions and in all places.”

*****

Frontier towns with and without gun legislation were violent places, more violent than family-friendly farming communities and Eastern cities of the time, but those without restrictions tended to have worse violence. “I’ve never seen any rhetoric from that time period saying that the only thing that’s going to reduce violence is more people with guns,” says Winkler. “It seems to be much more of a 20th-century attitude than one associated with the Wild West.

*****

Read it all at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gun-control-old-west-180968013/



Nary a gun in sight!

7 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Gun Control Is as Old as the Old West (Original Post) yallerdawg Feb 2018 OP
"Don't take your guns to town Son. Leave your guns at home Bill." Sneederbunk Feb 2018 #1
Well yeah but they aren't teachers underpants Feb 2018 #2
Or Generals. yallerdawg Feb 2018 #3
And in every decade since; here's a 1988 example come back to haunt frazzled Feb 2018 #4
It was basically illegal to transport a handgun in Texas prior to the Luby shooting Oct 16, 1991. TexasProgresive Feb 2018 #5
I remember the Luby's shooting. yallerdawg Feb 2018 #6
Message auto-removed Name removed Feb 2018 #7

frazzled

(18,402 posts)
4. And in every decade since; here's a 1988 example come back to haunt
Thu Feb 22, 2018, 04:05 PM
Feb 2018

Received this art news tidbit yesterday. The Hirschhorn Museum in Washington, DC (a part of the Smithsonian) was planning to re-show this massive, building-sized projection piece by the renowned Polish-born (NYC and MIT-based) video and projection artist Krzysztof Wodiczko. The museum has now postponed the piece's display--much to the consternation of art critics and artists nationwide. The critic from ArtNews tweeted "Project it every single night until sensible gun control legislation is passed and signed into law."

The restaging of the piece, which was first commissioned and projected on the museum thirty years ago, was meant to coincide with the opening of the exhibition “Brand New: Art and Commodity in the 1980s,” which will be on view until May 13. Wodiczko created the work as political commentary on the hot-button issues that were central to the 1988 presidential election, such as gun control and reproductive rights.

https://www.artforum.com/news/hirshhorn-s-decision-to-postpone-wodiczko-projection-is-a-missed-opportunity-critics-say-74287


It is sad that we are fighting the same battles over and over again, across the decades and even centuries. Now, more than ever, the Hirshhorn should display this powerful work once again:

TexasProgresive

(12,148 posts)
5. It was basically illegal to transport a handgun in Texas prior to the Luby shooting Oct 16, 1991.
Thu Feb 22, 2018, 07:28 PM
Feb 2018

There was some arcane law about bonafide travelers, those crossing county lines, but basically that was considered unlikely by law enforcement officers. The unofficial way to transport a handgun was unloaded in the trunk with the ammo in a lock box in the car. This still wasn't legal but was overlooked. After the Luby's Cafeteria mass shooting that was the crack in the dam. One woman, Susan Hupp, had an gun in her car during the shooting where her parents were killed.

The Texas State Rifle Association and others preferred that the state allow its citizens to carry concealed weapons.[14] Democratic governor Ann Richards vetoed such bills, but in 1995 her Republican successor, George W. Bush, signed one into force.[16] The law had been campaigned for by Suzanna Hupp, who was present at the massacre; both of her parents were killed by Hennard. She later testified that she would have liked to have had her gun, but said, "it was a hundred feet away in my car" (she had feared that if she was caught carrying it she might lose her chiropractor's license).[15] She testified across the country in support of concealed handgun laws, and was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1996.[17]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luby's_shooting

yallerdawg

(16,104 posts)
6. I remember the Luby's shooting.
Thu Feb 22, 2018, 07:44 PM
Feb 2018

Hell, I remember Charles Whitman up in the UT tower.

I remember the Stockton CA shootout.

And I remember last week, and Las Vegas, and Sandy Hook, and Columbine.

The more guns we have, the worse it gets.

Response to yallerdawg (Original post)

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