Posted by David Sherman on Friday, August 11, 2006 at 1:04PM :
In Reply to: Re: Right to Bear Arms... posted by Ugg at IL on Friday, August 11, 2006 at 6:07AM :
Just a comment on the Wild West thing. The more I read of actual frontier western history (news stories, first-hand accounts, etc), the more I realize the whole gunslinger thing was pretty much a hollywood invention. Sure there were robbers and outlaws and good sheriffs and bad sheriffs and fights over mining claims, but in most of the actual stories, what really comes through is that on the rare occasion that there was a robbery or shootout or cold-blooded murder, the ordinary citizens were appalled by it. Their reaction was the same "How could this happen in our community?" as we have today. Likewise, they were very dubious of vigilante justice and were eager to see proper courts established. If a lynching happened, the commentary afterwards was almost universally negative, saying it was a shameful thing to do.
The main difference, I think, between people's reaction to violent crime in frontier times vs today is that back then, most everybody knew at least one of the participants. Murder trials were more likely to end with a decision that "he had it coming" when everybody knew the "victim" was one who liked to pick a fight. Then as now, there were exceptions and injustices, and of course the worst occurences were what made the news, but all in all, the "wild west" wasn't nearly as wild as hollywood made it out to be.
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