Tombstone at time of OKCorral gunfight had stronger Gun Control than AZ today.

[Clio the Leo]

Even Tombstone had gun laws

By KATHERINE BENTON-COHEN | 1/10/11 10:53 AM EST

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, during a press conference about the Tucson shootings, called Arizona “the Tombstone of the United States.”

Some journalists gave the word a lowercase “t,” but the sheriff was clearly referring to the infamous silver-mining town 70 miles from Tucson — site of the shootout at the OK Corral.

As bloggers and journalists invoke the hoary image of “frontier violence” and “Arizona’s poisonous political rhetoric,” it is not that surprising it took less than a day to mention Arizona’s most infamous bloodshed—and from a local sheriff no less.

The irony of Dupnik’s remark is that Tombstone lawmakers in the 1880s did more to combat gun violence than the Arizona government does today.

For all the talk of the “Wild West,” the policymakers of 1880 Tombstone—and many other Western towns—were ardent supporters of gun control. When people now compare things to the “shootout at the OK Corral,” they mean vigilante violence by gunfire. But this is exactly what the Tombstone town council had been trying to avoid.

In late 1880, as regional violence ratcheted up, Tombstone strengthened its existing ban on concealed weapons to outlaw the carrying of any deadly weapons within the town limits. The Earps (who were Republicans) and Doc Holliday maintained that they were acting as law officers—not citizen vigilantes—when they shot their opponents. That is to say, they were sworn officers whose jobs included enforcement of Tombstone’s gun laws.

Today, in contrast, Arizonans can legally buy guns without licenses, and are able to carry concealed weapons without a permit. The state bans cities from passing their own, stricter laws. The legislature will consider a bill this session that would force schools to allow guns on campus — like Pima Community College, which the alleged shooter attended.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47366.html

[liberal N proud]

1. Wild - wild west

[Drale]

2. In most towns in the "west"

it was illegal to carry a gun, and you had to turn your "iron" over to the sheriff at the time you entered town. In that respect, most towns in the west had stricter gun control then all of America today. Although in practice most people still carried small concealable pocket pistols at all times.

[sharesunited]

3. Experiments in free fire societies are pretty reckless and unethical.

Unhealthy for children and other living things.

Christina Taylor Green.

[provis99]

4. the "Wild" West never was that wild.

Then, as now, the highest rates of murder, rape, and other violent crimes were in the South, not in the "Wild" West.