Are We Going Back to the Days of the Wild West?

When faced with solid arguments for the use of guns for self-defense and other pesky facts like the Second Amendment to the Constitution, Liberals often respond: “We can’t go back the Wild West, when everyone carried a gun." Really? Why not? They never explain why that was bad.

In fact, after a decision by the Supreme Court affirming the right of individuals to own guns, then-Chicago Mayor Richard Daley sarcastically said, “Then why don’t we do away with the court system and go back to the Old West? You have a gun and I have a gun and we’ll settle it in the streets?”

In a 24-hour period this week we saw 29 people die in two mass shootings in two states. Earlier in the week there was a shooting in California in which 3 died. (Technically, that didn’t qualify as a “mass shooting” because at least four have to die. Who makes such stupid distinctions?) But taken together, aren’t those shootings prime face evidence that all guns should be forcibly taken from U.S. citizens?

Most of the myths that we believe about the Old West are just that – myths based on popular Western movies and pulp fiction books. The supposedly frequent shootings made a lot of money for the producers of the legends, but there was very little truth in them.

WAS THE OLD WEST REALLY SO WILD?

Let’s look at the “Wild West” and see if the Liberals theories hold up.

1. In the “Wild West” nearly everyone routinely carried a gun on their person. Today, only 3.5% of Americans are armed.
    
2. Except in very large cities, there was usually only one “lawman” (Called the Marshall or the Sheriff) in each town. My County, Palm Beach, has 2,500 deputy sheriffs and many more thousands of local police officers.
    
3. Crime, particularly murder, was much lower the “Wild West” than it is today. The average murder rate in the West in the 1800’s was 1 per 100,000. In 1980, when a comprehensive study of murder was done, the U.S. rate was 10.2 per 100,000. And in America’s five deadliest cities today (all of them controlled by Democrats with strict gun control laws) it ranges from 33 to 65 per 100,000.

A lot of the false information about life in the West in the early days of America comes from false narratives in the old Western movies, and is used to the advantage of Liberals in their obsession to overturn the Second Amendment. For instance, why are Jesse James and Billy the Kid so widely known? Simply because the bank robberies they committed were so rare. In fact, during the 1800’s only eight bank robberies were committed. This is because the bank and the Sheriff’s office were downtown, close to one another. But if you are a fan of old Western movies, you would think that there was at least one bank robbery every week in every town and village of America.

The Democrats and Liberals seize on the false impressions and claim that crime was rampant in the old West – because there were so many guns. In fact, the exact opposite was true. There were very few crimes because of the very real threat that the person committing a violent crime would be shot by a citizen long before the Marshall could amble down the street to take charge.

THE MILD, MILD WEST

“It is true that gunslingers were ubiquitous. Nearly everyone had a gun. But you were safer to live and work in Abilene, Kansas in 1878 than in Southside Chicago in 2018. Between 1870 and 1885, the murder ratewas roughly one murder per 100,000 residents each year in numerous towns. Oregon maintained a murder rate of 30 per 100,000 adults. Some cow towns did not even experience a single killing in 1869 or 1870, like Abilene or Wichita. Many places only reported 45 murders in a 15-year period.”
From “Was the Wild West Really so Wild?” By Andrew Moran

“If, as many popularly assume, much of America's crime problem is a consequence of a heritage of frontier violence and lawlessness, then it is ironic that the crimes most common today—robbery, burglar, theft, and rape - were of no great significance then, and, in the case of rape, seemingly nonexistent in Aurora, Nevada and Bodie, California.” (Statistics on Aurora and Bodie, two of the major cities of the time, were cited often by the author of this scholarly three-volume study because they kept good records.)
From “Violence in America” by Roger D. Mcgrath

“Another injustice that movies did to those who lived in the west all through the 19th century was the fact that they were all portrayed as either gunslingers, land grabbers or mere sheep who worshipped the powerful. In reality, the situation in the old west was not that bad, actually less violent than the other parts of America. The rate of homicide was significantly low; there were no choreographed gun-bouts, no mass hangings; to put it in one term ‘west was never the way you may remember from the western movies’.” 
From “Myths About the Wild West that Westerns got Absolutely Wrong” by Ian Harvey 

SO, WHAT’S THE ANSWER?

In a short article, it would be impossible to discuss all the factors that contribute to mass shootings. A short list of these would include the emptying of mental health institutions by the government that began in 1965. Most of those patients are now homeless, and many are violent. Then there’s the prevalence of violent games and movies that desensitize viewers to violence. Another factor is permissive parents who believe their precious child can do no wrong – even when warned by school authorities of violence committed by their little darlings. And, of course, there are the Democrat-controlled cities who won’t let the police do their jobs, and are now reaping the fruit of their stupidity.

However, chewing on what got us here doesn’t do any good, except insofar as it guides us to change our policies. We need solutions that we can implement today. There are only three that can be rolled out swiftly and that would guarantee that fewer would die in mass shootings. Note that these would not stop mass shootings totally, but would greatly decrease the number that take place, and would ensure that the killer would be taken down before he could fire many shots – in many cases before he could even fire one shot.

1. Repeal laws and ordinances in Democrat-controlled states and cities that violate the Second Amendment. Just like in the Old West, the more citizens who are armed, the fewer incidents will occur. This is also true today. Murderers love cities that only permit criminals to own guns.
    
2. Harden target-rich environments. I live near Parkland, Florida, where due to the Sheriff’s incompetence and the cowardice of the sole deputy who was supposed to keep three thousand students safe. Even if he had not hidden and refused to act to protect the children, experts state that a school that large would require at least 12 armed and trained law enforcement officers. So the city is also at fault. The sheriff has been fired, and hopefully the politicians will not be re-elected. But nothing will bring back the lives of the students and staff who were murdered by a young man who had been investigated by police at least 40 times.
    
3. Ban “Gun Free Zones.” I am not generally in favor of the federal government passing laws that the states should. But in this case, a simple law stating that a private business, school, or any other organization may not prohibit people whom the state permits to carry a weapon from entering their establishment. This would not be the federal government imposing on the states; this would be protecting the rights of the states to enact law as that cannot be nullified by private corporations.

At first I was confused by the fact that during the six minutes it took for the police to arrive, not one citizen fired a shot at the murderer. There are probably more legal guns per capita in Texas than any other state. Then I discovered that the Walmart in El Paso was a “Gun Free Zone.” I WILL NEVER SHOP AT A WALMART AGAIN.

MY PREDICTIONS

1. The Democrats will wait a few days so that the public won’t be so aware of their slimy tactics. Then they will do as they always do – use terrible tragedies like this to advance their political agenda. They will call for new gun laws, even though there is no gun law that would have prevented these shootings, and many existing laws are not enforced. Remember this basic truth: Regardless of what they say, Democrats don’t care about guns. They care about control. This is no different than health insurance. Their proposed solutions do nothing to improve health care. But they do allow the Democrats to control 1/6 of the nation’s economy.
    
2. Walmart will face a massive class-action lawsuit. First, they did not allow citizens to defend themselves. Second, they did not provide adequate security to protect the thousands of people in their store. One question no one seems to be asking: How did the gunman get the gun into the store? I guarantee that question will be asked in open court.
    
3. The media will push heart-rending stories about the guns that killed so many people. They will ignore the fact that no gun can kill anyone; it takes a sick person to pull the trigger. They will claim that if we got rid of all the guns (which would be impossible, since the criminals will not turn theirs in), mass killings would stop. Read the articles cited below. Europe, which has roughly the same population as the U.S. has a much lower gun ownership rate – but has just as many people killed in mass murder incidents. The nut cases just use different weapons. Bombs, fire, poisonous gas and many others are even more effective than guns at killing large numbers of people than guns.

FINALLY, A WARNING

In my mind, and in the minds of many astute political observors, President Trump's re-election is a forgone conclusion. There is not a Democrat in the race, nor one waiting in the wings, that can lay a glove on him. In other words, this is Trump's race to lose. Unless...

There are rumors that, in the wake of this week's shootings, Trump is considering siding with the Democrats and some left-wing Republicans to further reduce the rights of U.S. citizens to keep and bear arms. Fair warning, Mr. President: If you do that, a very large portion of you base will desert you, and "Sleepy Joe" may well become the next U.S. president.


INTERNET RESOURCES:

Walmart Killer Admits In Manifesto That He Chose Gun-Free Zone For A Reason

Common Sense Regarding School Shootings

Abortions Cause School Shootings

Terrorist Massacres Entire Church

Bring Your Gun to Church Week

Islamic Terrorists Murder More than 300 in Churches

How the Release of Mental Patients Began