As for John Wesley Harding:
{...
He was well known for wildly exaggerating or completely making up stories about his life. He claimed credit for many murders that cannot be corroborated.
[4]:10–11
Within a year of his release in 1894, Hardin was killed by
John Selman in an
El Paso saloon.
...}
So he was taken care of by armed civilians, not the government.
Yes, and this wanton killing is why Dallas had the no firearms in the city limit streets and businesses and would have tried and convicted him for murder under the same cirumstances. Same goes more many other western towns.
Something can be said when there are too few guns in the innocents hands but there are volumes when there are too many. Even today, in El Paso, you can't have a weapon in a Bar.
I can find no specific references to Dallas, but clearly until 1900, the SCOTUS consistently ruled that city bans on firearms were entirely illegal, including concealed weapons.
I find no exceptions. The Earps in Deadwood were only temporarily confiscating while visiters were drinking.
List of firearm court cases in the United States - Wikipedia
{...
Bliss v. Commonwealth[edit]
Bliss v. Commonwealth (1822, Ky.)
[12] addressed the right to bear arms pursuant to Art. 10, Sec. 23 of the Second Constitution of
Kentucky (1799):
[13] "That the right of the citizens to bear arms in defence of themselves and the state, shall not be questioned." This was interpreted to include the right to carry a concealed sword in a cane.
Bliss has been described as about "a statute prohibiting the carrying of
concealed weapons [that] was violative of the Second Amendment."
[14] Others, however, have seen no conflict with the Second Amendment by the Commonwealth of Kentucky's statute under consideration in
Bliss since "The Kentucky law was aimed at concealed weapons. No one saw any conflict with the Second Amendment. As a matter of fact, most of the few people who considered the question at all believed amendments to the U.S. Constitution did not apply to state laws."
[15]
Bliss stated, "But it should not be forgotten, that it is not only a part of the right that is secured by the constitution; it is the right entire and complete, as it existed at the adoption of the constitution; and if any portion of that right be impaired, immaterial how small the part may be, and immaterial the order of time at which it be done, it is equally forbidden by the constitution."
[12] The "constitution" mentioned in this quote refers to Kentucky's Constitution.
[16]
The case prompted outrage in the Kentucky House, all the while recognizing that Section 23 of the Second Constitution of Kentucky (1799) did guarantee individuals the right to bear arms. The
Blissruling, to the extent that it dealt with concealed weapons, was overturned by constitutional amendment with Section 26 in Kentucky's Third Constitution (1850) banning the future carrying of concealed weapons, while still asserting that the bearing of arms in defense of themselves and the state was an individual and collective right in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. This recognition, has remained to the present day in the Commonwealth of Kentucky's Fourth Constitution enacted in 1891, in Section 1, Article 7, that guarantees "The right to bear arms in defense of themselves and of the State, subject to the power of the General Assembly to enact laws to prevent persons from carrying concealed weapons." As noted in the Northern Kentucky Law Review Second Amendment Symposium: Rights in Conflict in the 1980s, vol. 10, no. 1, 1982, p. 155, "The first state court decision resulting from the "right to bear arms" issue was
Bliss v. Commonwealth. The court held that "the right of citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State must be preserved entire, ..." "This holding was unique because it stated that the right to bear arms is absolute and unqualified."
[17][18]
The importance of
Bliss is also seen from the defense subsequently given against a murder charge in Kentucky against Mattews Ward, who in 1852 pulled out a concealed pistol and fatally wounded his brother's teacher over an accusation regarding eating chestnuts in class. Ward's defense team consisted of eighteen lawyers, including U.S. Senator
John Crittenden, former Governor of Kentucky, and former
United States Attorney General. The defense successfully defended Ward in 1854 through an assertion that "a man has a right to carry arms; I am aware of nothing in the laws of God or man, prohibiting it. The Constitution of Kentucky and our Bill of Rights guarantee it. The Legislature once passed an act forbidding it, but it was decided unconstitutional, and overruled by our highest tribunal, the Court of Appeals." As noted by Cornell, "Ward's lawyers took advantage of the doctrine advanced in
Bliss and wrapped their client's action under the banner of a constitutional right to bear arms. Ward was acquitted."
...}