[h=1]Progressives Might NOT Want to Look to the Old West for Gun Control Ideas[/h] Jarrett Stepman / @JarrettStepman / March 08, 2018




The infamous gunfight at O.K. Corral occurred in a 19th-century version of a "gun-free zone." (Photo: Walter Bibikow/DanitaDelimont.com "Danita Delimont Photography"/Newscom)



Jarrett Stepman @JarrettStepman
Jarrett Stepman is an editor and commentary writer for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Send an email to Jarrett.


A frequent criticism levied at those who oppose widespread gun control is that they want to return to a kind of Wild West of violence and criminality.


But now, ironically, more and more people on the left are pointing to the Old West as a model for gun control. They say that conservatives are wrong to think the Second Amendment right to bear arms is ingrained in American history.
A recent article in Smithsonian Magazine called “Gun Control Is as Old as the Old West” laid out the case that some famous western towns, like Tombstone and Dodge City, actually had gun control laws.
But injecting these laws into the modern gun debate would seem to be ill-advised, especially if they are used to argue that “disarmed” societies are necessarily safer.
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Most of the gun control laws in the Old West, if they existed at all, had nothing to do with confiscation or restrictions on gun type. They had more to do with gun use—for instance, firing pistols in city streets.
Few opponents of gun control today would object to limitations on discharging firearms in a busy intersection.
Gun Control Failure at the O.K. Corral
There were some frontier towns where there were gun restrictions, such as in Tombstone, Arizona, where an 1881 law made it “unlawful to carry in the hand or upon the person or otherwise any deadly weapon within the limits of said city of Tombstone, without first obtaining a permit in writing.”
Laws of this extent were mostly unheard of in most American cities and were unusual in the Old West. But even in this limited case, they proved ineffective.


Perhaps the most famous gunfight in all of American history took place at the O.K. Corral between Tombstone authorities (including the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday) and associates of Ike Clanton, a rough-around-the-edges frontier character.
As an article for NRA-ILA explains, “Tombstone of the 1880s is a peculiar model for those who today agitate for greater local authority to restrict or ban firearms.”
The notorious incident at the O.K. Corral took place in the closest equivalent to a “gun-free zone” in the 19th century. The gun control measure, such that it was, did little to stem gun violence, and likely provoked the infamous confrontation.
At a trial that took place after the shooting, a judge declared that Sheriff Virgil Earp “committed an injudicious and censurable act” to gather a posse to take down Clanton and take away his guns, and that he had “acted incautiously and without due circumspection.”
“The [gun] ordinance, in this case at least, proved to be almost entirely ineffective,” the NRA piece said. “As recounted in the court decision, Sheriff Behan had ‘demanded of the Clantons and McLaurys that they give up their arms, and … they ‘demurred,’ as he said, and did not do it.”
Even the Smithsonian piece noted that Tombstone’s “most violent year was 1881, in which also only five people were killed; three were the cowboys shot by Earp’s men at the O.K. Corral.”