Way back in the day of the cowboy’s gun control was tougher than it is today

[Bootney Lee Farnsworth]

Gun control is nothing new. Way back in the day of the cowboy’s gun control was tougher than it is today

The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms and was adopted on December 15, 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights.

In the 2008 Heller decision, the Supreme Court affirmed for the first time that the right belongs to individuals, exclusively for self-defense in the home, while also including, as dicta, that the right is not unlimited and does not preclude the existence of certain long-standing prohibitions such as those forbidding "the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill" or restrictions on "the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. State and local governments are limited to the same extent as the federal government from infringing this right.

Gun Control Is as Old as the Old West

Contrary to the popular imagination, bearing arms on the frontier was a heavily regulated business
image: https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/7hLl651LYAFdrPD6uJnBbRi1Rj8=/800x600/filters:no_upscale()/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/da/bc/dabc3b99-f221-4392-8e0a-a3b3f3d98af5/wright1913_dodge_city_in_1878_14782835852.jpg

The “Old West” conjures up all sorts of imagery, but broadly, the term is used to evoke life among the crusty prospectors, threadbare gold panners, madams of brothels, and six-shooter-packing cowboys in small frontier towns – such as Tombstone, Deadwood, Dodge City, or Abilene, to name a few. One other thing these cities had in common: strict gun control laws.

Laws regulating ownership and carry of firearms, apart from the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment, were passed at a local level rather than by Congress. “Gun control laws were adopted pretty quickly in these places,” says Winkler. “Most were adopted by municipal governments exercising self-control and self-determination.”

Carrying any kind of weapon, guns, or knives, was not allowed other than outside town borders and inside the home. When visitors left their weapons with a law officer upon entering town, they'd receive a token, like a coat check, which they'd exchange for their guns when leaving town.

The practice was started in Southern states, which were among the first to enact laws against concealed carry of guns and knives, in the early 1800s. -- The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America, points to an 1840 Alabama court that, in upholding its state ban, ruled it was a state's right to regulate where and how a citizen could carry, and that the state constitution's allowance of personal firearms “is not to bear arms upon all occasions and in all places.”

Contrary to the popular imagination, bearing arms on the frontier was a heavily regulated business
image: https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/7hLl651LYAFdrPD6uJnBbRi1Rj8=/800x600/filters:no_upscale()/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/da/bc/dabc3b99-f221-4392-8e0a-a3b3f3d98af5/wright1913_dodge_city_in_1878_14782835852.jpg

Dodge City in 1878 (Wikimedia Commons)

It's October 26, 1881, in Tombstone, and Arizona
The laws of Tombstone at the time required visitors, upon entering town to disarm, either at a hotel or a lawman's office. (Residents of many famed cattle towns, such as Dodge City, Abilene, and Deadwood, had similar restrictions.)
image: https://public-media.si-cdn.com/fil...d-4fac-8fc0-7ff859b10f21/mclauriesclanton.jpg

"Tombstone had much more restrictive laws on carrying guns in public in the 1880s than it has today,” Same goes for most of the New West, to varying degrees, in the once-rowdy frontier towns of Nevada, Kansas, Montana, and South Dakota.

Dodge City, Kansas, formed a municipal government in 1878. According to Stephen Aron, a professor of history at UCLA, the first law passed was one prohibiting the carry of guns in town, likely by civic leaders and influential merchants who wanted people to move there, Cultivating a reputation of peace and stability was necessary, even in boisterous towns, if it were to become anything more transient than a one-industry boom town.

Laws regulating ownership and carry of firearms, apart from the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment, were passed at a local level rather than by Congress. “Gun control laws were adopted pretty quickly in these places,” says Winkler. “Most were adopted by municipal governments exercising self-control and self-determination.” Carrying any kind of weapon, guns or knives, was not allowed other than outside town borders and inside the home. When visitors left their weapons with a law officer upon entering town, they'd receive a token, like a coat check, which they'd exchange for their guns when leaving town.

Louisiana, too, upheld an early ban on concealed carry firearms. When a Kentucky court reversed its ban, the state constitution was amended to specify the Kentucky general assembly was within its rights to, in the future, regulate or prohibit concealed carry.

Still, Winkler says, it was an affirmation that regulation was compatible with the Second Amendment. The federal government of the 1800s largely stayed out of gun-law court battles.

“People were allowed to own guns, and everyone did own guns [in the West], for the most part,” says Winkler.

“Having a firearm to protect yourself in the lawless wilderness from wild animals, hostile native tribes, and outlaws was a wise idea. But when you came into town, you had to either check your guns if you were a visitor or keep your guns at home if you were a resident.”
Gun Control Is as Old as the Old West

Did the Wild West Have More Gun Control Than We Do Today?

The answer is YES. When you entered a frontier town, you were legally required to leave your guns at the stables on the outskirts of town or drop them off with the sheriff, who would give you a token in exchange. You checked your guns then like you’d check your overcoat today at a Boston restaurant in winter. Visitors were welcome, but their guns were not.
While people were allowed to have guns at home for self-protection, frontier towns usually barred anyone but law enforcement from carrying guns in public.

When Dodge City residents organized their municipal government, do you know what the very first law they passed was? A gun control law. They declared that “any person or persons found carrying concealed weapons in the city of Dodge or violating the laws of the State shall be dealt with according to law.” Many frontier towns, including Tombstone, Arizona—the site of the infamous “Shootout at the OK Corral”—also barred the carrying of guns openly.

Like any law regulating things that are small and easy to conceal, the gun control of the Wild West wasn’t always perfectly enforced. But statistics show that, next to drunk and disorderly conduct, the most common cause of arrest was illegally carrying a firearm. Sheriffs and marshals took gun control seriously.
Did the Wild West Have More Gun Control Than We Do Today?

Illinois town bans assault weapons, will fine those who keep them
The town of Deerfield, Ill., has moved to ban assault weapons, including the AR-15 used in the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, claiming the measure will make the town more safe from mass shootings.

The ordinance was passed unanimously Monday by the Deerfield Village Board. It states the move is in the best interest of public health and will spur a culture change toward "the normative value that assault weapons should have no role or purpose in civil society."

It also takes a swing at a popular reading of the Second Amendment, stating the weapons are "not reasonably necessary to protect an individual's right of self-defense" or to preserve a well-regulated militia.
Illinois town bans assault weapons, will fine those who keep them

Chicago suburb bans assault weapons in response to Parkland shooting

With the future of federal gun control legislation uncertain, an affluent Chicago suburb this week took the aggressive step of banning assault weapons within its borders, in what local officials said was a direct response to the mass shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school earlier this year.

Officials in Deerfield, Ill., unanimously approved the ordinance, which prohibits the possession, manufacture or sale of a range of firearms, as well as large-capacity magazines. Residents of the 19,000-person village have until June 13 to remove the guns from village limits or face up to $1,000 per day in fines.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...hooting/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.95db16134355

Seattle will require gun owners to lock up their firearms, after the City Council voted unanimously Monday to pass legislation proposed by Mayor Jenny Durkan.
Starting 180 days after Durkan signs the legislation, it will be a civil infraction to store a gun without the firearm being secured in a locked container.
The legislation will apply only to guns kept somewhere, rather than those carried by or under the control of their owners.
Also under the legislation, it will be a civil infraction when an owner knows or should know that a minor, “at-risk person” or unauthorized user is likely to access a gun and such a person actually does access the weapon.

The legislation allows fines up to $500 when a gun isn’t locked up,
up to $1,000 when a prohibited person accesses a firearm
and up to $10,000 when a prohibited person uses the weapon to hurt someone or commit a crime.
Gun owners face fines up to $10,000 for not locking up their guns under new Seattle law

What has changed from then to now??
-​

So what??

Gun control is a horrible concept.....there should be no laws that places restrictions on weapons....

If the military can have all of these weapons with our tax dollars -- we should be able to have those same weapons in case we need to overthrow that government...we can't rely on voting anymore....China owns our voting systems

If you ever post something without snark and sarcasm, let me know.

 

[Rigby5]

Someone somewhere said that privateers had privately-owned cannons. They could not use them offensively without a letter de marque, I believe. If I am wrong, please correct me.

Wrong.
The purpose of the Letter of Marque was so that if captured, you had POW rights instead of being hung as a pirate.
It tied you to a chain of command that ensured you followed the rules of war.
If you did not have a Letter of Marque, then you could still engage in any sort of activity you wanted, but then you did not have any protection under international law.

 

[Rigby5]

There was zero gun control in the Old West.
Sure cowboys from out of town had to turn in guns while gambling and drinking in the saloon or casinos, but they were given their guns back immediately upon leaving the saloon or casino.
And the residents never turned in anything.

 

[LeftofLeft]

Gun control is nothing new. Way back in the day of the cowboy’s gun control was tougher than it is today

The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms and was adopted on December 15, 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights.

In the 2008 Heller decision, the Supreme Court affirmed for the first time that the right belongs to individuals, exclusively for self-defense in the home, while also including, as dicta, that the right is not unlimited and does not preclude the existence of certain long-standing prohibitions such as those forbidding "the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill" or restrictions on "the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. State and local governments are limited to the same extent as the federal government from infringing this right.

Gun Control Is as Old as the Old West

Contrary to the popular imagination, bearing arms on the frontier was a heavily regulated business
image: https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/7hLl651LYAFdrPD6uJnBbRi1Rj8=/800x600/filters:no_upscale()/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/da/bc/dabc3b99-f221-4392-8e0a-a3b3f3d98af5/wright1913_dodge_city_in_1878_14782835852.jpg

The “Old West” conjures up all sorts of imagery, but broadly, the term is used to evoke life among the crusty prospectors, threadbare gold panners, madams of brothels, and six-shooter-packing cowboys in small frontier towns – such as Tombstone, Deadwood, Dodge City, or Abilene, to name a few. One other thing these cities had in common: strict gun control laws.

Laws regulating ownership and carry of firearms, apart from the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment, were passed at a local level rather than by Congress. “Gun control laws were adopted pretty quickly in these places,” says Winkler. “Most were adopted by municipal governments exercising self-control and self-determination.”

Carrying any kind of weapon, guns, or knives, was not allowed other than outside town borders and inside the home. When visitors left their weapons with a law officer upon entering town, they'd receive a token, like a coat check, which they'd exchange for their guns when leaving town.

The practice was started in Southern states, which were among the first to enact laws against concealed carry of guns and knives, in the early 1800s. -- The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America, points to an 1840 Alabama court that, in upholding its state ban, ruled it was a state's right to regulate where and how a citizen could carry, and that the state constitution's allowance of personal firearms “is not to bear arms upon all occasions and in all places.”

Contrary to the popular imagination, bearing arms on the frontier was a heavily regulated business
image: https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/7hLl651LYAFdrPD6uJnBbRi1Rj8=/800x600/filters:no_upscale()/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/da/bc/dabc3b99-f221-4392-8e0a-a3b3f3d98af5/wright1913_dodge_city_in_1878_14782835852.jpg

Dodge City in 1878 (Wikimedia Commons)

It's October 26, 1881, in Tombstone, and Arizona
The laws of Tombstone at the time required visitors, upon entering town to disarm, either at a hotel or a lawman's office. (Residents of many famed cattle towns, such as Dodge City, Abilene, and Deadwood, had similar restrictions.)
image: https://public-media.si-cdn.com/fil...d-4fac-8fc0-7ff859b10f21/mclauriesclanton.jpg

"Tombstone had much more restrictive laws on carrying guns in public in the 1880s than it has today,” Same goes for most of the New West, to varying degrees, in the once-rowdy frontier towns of Nevada, Kansas, Montana, and South Dakota.

Dodge City, Kansas, formed a municipal government in 1878. According to Stephen Aron, a professor of history at UCLA, the first law passed was one prohibiting the carry of guns in town, likely by civic leaders and influential merchants who wanted people to move there, Cultivating a reputation of peace and stability was necessary, even in boisterous towns, if it were to become anything more transient than a one-industry boom town.

Laws regulating ownership and carry of firearms, apart from the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment, were passed at a local level rather than by Congress. “Gun control laws were adopted pretty quickly in these places,” says Winkler. “Most were adopted by municipal governments exercising self-control and self-determination.” Carrying any kind of weapon, guns or knives, was not allowed other than outside town borders and inside the home. When visitors left their weapons with a law officer upon entering town, they'd receive a token, like a coat check, which they'd exchange for their guns when leaving town.

Louisiana, too, upheld an early ban on concealed carry firearms. When a Kentucky court reversed its ban, the state constitution was amended to specify the Kentucky general assembly was within its rights to, in the future, regulate or prohibit concealed carry.

Still, Winkler says, it was an affirmation that regulation was compatible with the Second Amendment. The federal government of the 1800s largely stayed out of gun-law court battles.

“People were allowed to own guns, and everyone did own guns [in the West], for the most part,” says Winkler.

“Having a firearm to protect yourself in the lawless wilderness from wild animals, hostile native tribes, and outlaws was a wise idea. But when you came into town, you had to either check your guns if you were a visitor or keep your guns at home if you were a resident.”
Gun Control Is as Old as the Old West

Did the Wild West Have More Gun Control Than We Do Today?

The answer is YES. When you entered a frontier town, you were legally required to leave your guns at the stables on the outskirts of town or drop them off with the sheriff, who would give you a token in exchange. You checked your guns then like you’d check your overcoat today at a Boston restaurant in winter. Visitors were welcome, but their guns were not.
While people were allowed to have guns at home for self-protection, frontier towns usually barred anyone but law enforcement from carrying guns in public.

When Dodge City residents organized their municipal government, do you know what the very first law they passed was? A gun control law. They declared that “any person or persons found carrying concealed weapons in the city of Dodge or violating the laws of the State shall be dealt with according to law.” Many frontier towns, including Tombstone, Arizona—the site of the infamous “Shootout at the OK Corral”—also barred the carrying of guns openly.

Like any law regulating things that are small and easy to conceal, the gun control of the Wild West wasn’t always perfectly enforced. But statistics show that, next to drunk and disorderly conduct, the most common cause of arrest was illegally carrying a firearm. Sheriffs and marshals took gun control seriously.
Did the Wild West Have More Gun Control Than We Do Today?

Illinois town bans assault weapons, will fine those who keep them
The town of Deerfield, Ill., has moved to ban assault weapons, including the AR-15 used in the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, claiming the measure will make the town more safe from mass shootings.

The ordinance was passed unanimously Monday by the Deerfield Village Board. It states the move is in the best interest of public health and will spur a culture change toward "the normative value that assault weapons should have no role or purpose in civil society."

It also takes a swing at a popular reading of the Second Amendment, stating the weapons are "not reasonably necessary to protect an individual's right of self-defense" or to preserve a well-regulated militia.
Illinois town bans assault weapons, will fine those who keep them

Chicago suburb bans assault weapons in response to Parkland shooting

With the future of federal gun control legislation uncertain, an affluent Chicago suburb this week took the aggressive step of banning assault weapons within its borders, in what local officials said was a direct response to the mass shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school earlier this year.

Officials in Deerfield, Ill., unanimously approved the ordinance, which prohibits the possession, manufacture or sale of a range of firearms, as well as large-capacity magazines. Residents of the 19,000-person village have until June 13 to remove the guns from village limits or face up to $1,000 per day in fines.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...hooting/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.95db16134355

Seattle will require gun owners to lock up their firearms, after the City Council voted unanimously Monday to pass legislation proposed by Mayor Jenny Durkan.
Starting 180 days after Durkan signs the legislation, it will be a civil infraction to store a gun without the firearm being secured in a locked container.
The legislation will apply only to guns kept somewhere, rather than those carried by or under the control of their owners.
Also under the legislation, it will be a civil infraction when an owner knows or should know that a minor, “at-risk person” or unauthorized user is likely to access a gun and such a person actually does access the weapon.

The legislation allows fines up to $500 when a gun isn’t locked up,
up to $1,000 when a prohibited person accesses a firearm
and up to $10,000 when a prohibited person uses the weapon to hurt someone or commit a crime.
Gun owners face fines up to $10,000 for not locking up their guns under new Seattle law

What has changed from then to now??
-​

Since the mass shooting at University of Texas in 1965, we have had multiple mass shootings throughout the US. From 1791 to 1965, few if any mass shootings exist on record. What changed? Teachers kept firearms in classrooms. People by and large carried firearms and firearms were in every home.

there was no impulse to got out and commit a mass shooting. And, if there were, there was a deterrent in place.

 

[Batcat]

People used to poop in the streets, too. Doesn't mean it's a good idea.

I hear they are still pooping in the streets in San Francisco.

 

[Batcat]

There was zero gun control in the Old West.
Sure cowboys from out of town had to turn in guns while gambling and drinking in the saloon or casinos, but they were given their guns back immediately upon leaving the saloon or casino.
And the residents never turned in anything

Exactly. It's called selective enforcement. The locals needed firearms to protect themselves from the rowdy, drunk cowboys.

 

[AZrailwhale]

Someone somewhere said that privateers had privately-owned cannons. They could not use them offensively without a letter de marque, I believe. If I am wrong, please correct me.

That's correct; a Letter of Marque and Reprisal allowed ANY ship to attack, seize and sell any ship registered in the country or countries listed in the Letter of Marque. Jean Laffite operated under a letter of Marque for years with impunity. He and many other became pirates when they began to prey upon ship of countries not listed on their Letters of Marque. However, almost all merchant ships carried cannons of some type or caliber for self-defence. British East Indiamen for instance, looked like 74 gun battleships, but were armed like medium sized frigates. In at least one instance a group of East Indiamen pretended to be Royal Navy warships and bluffed a small French raiding squadron into not attacking their convoy. That's been used in several books, but it really happened.

 

[AZrailwhale]

See my post to Concerned American.

I've been to SoCal, and traveled a bit in northern CA, but never been to Frisco. And given the amount of biohazards on the sidewalks -- used needles and human shit -- I don't see ever wanting to change that fact.

The sh**ty streets of San Francisco: Revolting map reveals the staggering amount of human waste found on storied city's streets as homeless crisis spirals out of control

I simply can't imagine why anyone would be proud of their city being an open-air toilet.

I can't imagine anyone being proud to live there today. I was stationed at Presidio San Francisco in 1971 and San Francisco was a vibrant, exciting, if very crowded, city. It had everything going for it except weather, as Mark Twain said, "the coldest winter I ever felt was a summer in San Francisco".

 

[AZrailwhale]

Personal attack instead of dealing with the facts reveals a shallow mind. Can the average citizen, without meeting the fed firearms laws etc, own a cannon? I can own a tank if I jump through the legal hoops. Try to understand the difference.

Actually you don't have to jump through any hoops to on a tank as long as the main gun and machine guns aren't operational. You do have to license it if you want to drive it on the road. Normally only tanks with rubber track pads will be licensed since steel tracks tend to destroy asphalt roads in short order.

 

[AZrailwhale]

Have you got a lathe? That is where I got my cannon. I made it. It can fire a 4" steel ball. There are no laws that restrict the mfr. and use of these cannons. Indeed, I am sure that many civil war replicas are in yards throughout the country.

Weapons built before a certain date (I think it was 1880 or so) or replicas of such are considered historical artifacts and nut subject to licensing or regulation. Now some places call cannon "destructive devices" and require registration and licensing. I knew a guy near Ventura California that owned a Civil War era 12 pound Napolean cannon. He took it all over and often fired it at historical celebrations or battlefield reenactments.

 

[Godboy]

Gun control is nothing new. Way back in the day of the cowboy’s gun control was tougher than it is today

The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms and was adopted on December 15, 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights.

In the 2008 Heller decision, the Supreme Court affirmed for the first time that the right belongs to individuals, exclusively for self-defense in the home, while also including, as dicta, that the right is not unlimited and does not preclude the existence of certain long-standing prohibitions such as those forbidding "the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill" or restrictions on "the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. State and local governments are limited to the same extent as the federal government from infringing this right.

Gun Control Is as Old as the Old West

Contrary to the popular imagination, bearing arms on the frontier was a heavily regulated business
image: https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/7hLl651LYAFdrPD6uJnBbRi1Rj8=/800x600/filters:no_upscale()/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/da/bc/dabc3b99-f221-4392-8e0a-a3b3f3d98af5/wright1913_dodge_city_in_1878_14782835852.jpg

The “Old West” conjures up all sorts of imagery, but broadly, the term is used to evoke life among the crusty prospectors, threadbare gold panners, madams of brothels, and six-shooter-packing cowboys in small frontier towns – such as Tombstone, Deadwood, Dodge City, or Abilene, to name a few. One other thing these cities had in common: strict gun control laws.

Laws regulating ownership and carry of firearms, apart from the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment, were passed at a local level rather than by Congress. “Gun control laws were adopted pretty quickly in these places,” says Winkler. “Most were adopted by municipal governments exercising self-control and self-determination.”

Carrying any kind of weapon, guns, or knives, was not allowed other than outside town borders and inside the home. When visitors left their weapons with a law officer upon entering town, they'd receive a token, like a coat check, which they'd exchange for their guns when leaving town.

The practice was started in Southern states, which were among the first to enact laws against concealed carry of guns and knives, in the early 1800s. -- The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America, points to an 1840 Alabama court that, in upholding its state ban, ruled it was a state's right to regulate where and how a citizen could carry, and that the state constitution's allowance of personal firearms “is not to bear arms upon all occasions and in all places.”

Contrary to the popular imagination, bearing arms on the frontier was a heavily regulated business
image: https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/7hLl651LYAFdrPD6uJnBbRi1Rj8=/800x600/filters:no_upscale()/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/da/bc/dabc3b99-f221-4392-8e0a-a3b3f3d98af5/wright1913_dodge_city_in_1878_14782835852.jpg

Dodge City in 1878 (Wikimedia Commons)

It's October 26, 1881, in Tombstone, and Arizona
The laws of Tombstone at the time required visitors, upon entering town to disarm, either at a hotel or a lawman's office. (Residents of many famed cattle towns, such as Dodge City, Abilene, and Deadwood, had similar restrictions.)
image: https://public-media.si-cdn.com/fil...d-4fac-8fc0-7ff859b10f21/mclauriesclanton.jpg

"Tombstone had much more restrictive laws on carrying guns in public in the 1880s than it has today,” Same goes for most of the New West, to varying degrees, in the once-rowdy frontier towns of Nevada, Kansas, Montana, and South Dakota.

Dodge City, Kansas, formed a municipal government in 1878. According to Stephen Aron, a professor of history at UCLA, the first law passed was one prohibiting the carry of guns in town, likely by civic leaders and influential merchants who wanted people to move there, Cultivating a reputation of peace and stability was necessary, even in boisterous towns, if it were to become anything more transient than a one-industry boom town.

Laws regulating ownership and carry of firearms, apart from the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment, were passed at a local level rather than by Congress. “Gun control laws were adopted pretty quickly in these places,” says Winkler. “Most were adopted by municipal governments exercising self-control and self-determination.” Carrying any kind of weapon, guns or knives, was not allowed other than outside town borders and inside the home. When visitors left their weapons with a law officer upon entering town, they'd receive a token, like a coat check, which they'd exchange for their guns when leaving town.

Louisiana, too, upheld an early ban on concealed carry firearms. When a Kentucky court reversed its ban, the state constitution was amended to specify the Kentucky general assembly was within its rights to, in the future, regulate or prohibit concealed carry.

Still, Winkler says, it was an affirmation that regulation was compatible with the Second Amendment. The federal government of the 1800s largely stayed out of gun-law court battles.

“People were allowed to own guns, and everyone did own guns [in the West], for the most part,” says Winkler.

“Having a firearm to protect yourself in the lawless wilderness from wild animals, hostile native tribes, and outlaws was a wise idea. But when you came into town, you had to either check your guns if you were a visitor or keep your guns at home if you were a resident.”
Gun Control Is as Old as the Old West

Did the Wild West Have More Gun Control Than We Do Today?

The answer is YES. When you entered a frontier town, you were legally required to leave your guns at the stables on the outskirts of town or drop them off with the sheriff, who would give you a token in exchange. You checked your guns then like you’d check your overcoat today at a Boston restaurant in winter. Visitors were welcome, but their guns were not.
While people were allowed to have guns at home for self-protection, frontier towns usually barred anyone but law enforcement from carrying guns in public.

When Dodge City residents organized their municipal government, do you know what the very first law they passed was? A gun control law. They declared that “any person or persons found carrying concealed weapons in the city of Dodge or violating the laws of the State shall be dealt with according to law.” Many frontier towns, including Tombstone, Arizona—the site of the infamous “Shootout at the OK Corral”—also barred the carrying of guns openly.

Like any law regulating things that are small and easy to conceal, the gun control of the Wild West wasn’t always perfectly enforced. But statistics show that, next to drunk and disorderly conduct, the most common cause of arrest was illegally carrying a firearm. Sheriffs and marshals took gun control seriously.
Did the Wild West Have More Gun Control Than We Do Today?

Illinois town bans assault weapons, will fine those who keep them
The town of Deerfield, Ill., has moved to ban assault weapons, including the AR-15 used in the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, claiming the measure will make the town more safe from mass shootings.

The ordinance was passed unanimously Monday by the Deerfield Village Board. It states the move is in the best interest of public health and will spur a culture change toward "the normative value that assault weapons should have no role or purpose in civil society."

It also takes a swing at a popular reading of the Second Amendment, stating the weapons are "not reasonably necessary to protect an individual's right of self-defense" or to preserve a well-regulated militia.
Illinois town bans assault weapons, will fine those who keep them

Chicago suburb bans assault weapons in response to Parkland shooting

With the future of federal gun control legislation uncertain, an affluent Chicago suburb this week took the aggressive step of banning assault weapons within its borders, in what local officials said was a direct response to the mass shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school earlier this year.

Officials in Deerfield, Ill., unanimously approved the ordinance, which prohibits the possession, manufacture or sale of a range of firearms, as well as large-capacity magazines. Residents of the 19,000-person village have until June 13 to remove the guns from village limits or face up to $1,000 per day in fines.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...hooting/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.95db16134355

Seattle will require gun owners to lock up their firearms, after the City Council voted unanimously Monday to pass legislation proposed by Mayor Jenny Durkan.
Starting 180 days after Durkan signs the legislation, it will be a civil infraction to store a gun without the firearm being secured in a locked container.
The legislation will apply only to guns kept somewhere, rather than those carried by or under the control of their owners.
Also under the legislation, it will be a civil infraction when an owner knows or should know that a minor, “at-risk person” or unauthorized user is likely to access a gun and such a person actually does access the weapon.

The legislation allows fines up to $500 when a gun isn’t locked up,
up to $1,000 when a prohibited person accesses a firearm
and up to $10,000 when a prohibited person uses the weapon to hurt someone or commit a crime.
Gun owners face fines up to $10,000 for not locking up their guns under new Seattle law

What has changed from then to now??
-​

Its was too easy to get away with murder back then. A guy would shoot someone in a tavern and ride off without being brought to justice, let alone identified. Today we have ballistics, cameras, dna test, etc.

 

[AZrailwhale]

But it's an incorrect point. You didn't have waiting periods, laws against requiring concealed weapon permits, back ground checks, gun registration, etc.

Many cities and towns still have laws against open-carry, and every state I know requires a concealed weapon permit if you wish to have a concealed weapon

Arizona doesn't require a permit for concealed carry anymore. I got one anyway in case I ever feel the need to carry in another state that has reciprocal rights.

 

[AZrailwhale]

'Respectfully'......first off, the West was not 'wild' in fact it was quite boring most of the time. Folks who farmed were well armed to protect themselves from predatory animals, for shooting game and to protect the homestead from strangers because there was no law enforcement for miles around. Generally, though, life was just working every day to take care of work animals or domestic animals (cows for milk, chickens, pigs, etc. and gardens for vegetables).

Towns were quite different, cow punchers coming off a long drive and being flush with their pay, would descend upon a town and often times create havoc shooting up the town and generally celebrating. The other side of the coin is that towns actually depended on these cowboys for the influx of cash they would bring spending it on prostitutes, gambling, hotels, barbers, and, of course dropping scads of dough in the local drinking establishments. It is little wonder why a Sheriff would confiscate their guns until they left town.

Like I said, totally different times, totally different reason for gun confiscation. Also, back then, it would be unthinkable to confiscate guns from the entire frontier population and it never happened..Also, in those towns, the Sheriff would never confiscate the trusted townspeople's guns because he would need them in cases where the town may have faced organized outlaws, indians, etc.

The James gang found out the hard way about armed townies. The citizens of Northfield Minnesota very nearly wiped out the entire gang when it tried to rob the bank on September 7th 1876, And even then Minnesota wasn't considered the "wild west".

 

[AZrailwhale]

Actually, Mexico's constitution has a clause almost identical to the Second Amendment... they just don't have the bizarre intrepretation the National Rampage Association has fostered.

The constitution used to say that, but it was changed, Here is an excert from an artiocle on the subject:
The right to keep and bear arms was first recognized as a constitutional right under Article 10 of the Mexican Constitution of 1857.[8] However, as part of the Mexican Constitution of 1917, Article 10 was changed[9] where-by the right to keep and bear arms was given two separate definitions: the right to keep (derecho a poseer in Spanish) and the right to bear (derecho a portar in Spanish).[10] The new version of Article 10 specified that citizens were entitled to keep arms (own them) but may only bear them (carry them) among the population in accordance to police regulation.[11] This modification to Article 10 also introduced the so-called ...[arms] for exclusive use of the [military]... (in Spanish: ...de uso exclusivo del Ejército...), dictating that the law would stipulate which weapons were reserved for the armed forces, including law enforcement agencies, for being considered weapons of war."
In reality only pistols of .380 caliber (9mm short) or smaller, rifles of .22 caliber and shotguns of 12 gauge or smaller are legal for possession by civilians and can only be carried outside the house with a police permit that is almost impossible for anyone not rich or connected to get. Also there is only ONE STORE in the entire country where guns can be legally purchased and that's AFTER obtaining one of the permits and it's in Mexico D.F. (Mexico City to us gringos)

 

[Concerned American]

Weapons built before a certain date (I think it was 1880 or so) or replicas of such are considered historical a19rtifacts and nut subject to licensing or regulation. Now some places call cannon "destructive devices" and require registration and licensing. I knew a guy near Ventura California that owned a Civil War era 12 pound Napolean cannon. He took it all over and often fired it at historical celebrations or battlefield reenactments.

The hodge podge of laws in this country is ridiculous. In CA they have all of these ignorant laws about assault weapons (not defined), magazine capacity, bayonets, etc. But you can buy a pre 1960 Russian SKS that has a bayonet, which is considered a "relic" and walk out of the store with it with no waiting period. How would that operational gun be any different than a new gun. SMH. Democrat lawmakers are morons.

 

[AZrailwhale]

They do when their fellow citizens turn them in. The reality of the holocaust is that guns didn't make a difference. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising had a shitload of guns... and managed to kill a whopping 19 Germans before they were all rounded up and killed...

I don't know where you get your "facts" but here's an excerpt from an article in weapons and Warfare:
With typical Teutonic efficiency, the SS collected and catalogued all the weapons that they had captured or recovered after the battle. It was not an impressive haul, considering the doggedness of the resistance that the Germans had encountered. Of course, many weapons were not recovered, being buried under collapsed buildings, destroyed by fire or taken out of the ghetto by the surviving fighters. The SS listed just seven Polish, one Russian and one German rifle captured, along with fifty-nine pistols of various makes, several hundred hand grenades, Molotov cocktails and home-made explosives. The SS also recovered 1,240 German uniforms that the resisters often used to travel around the ghetto during the fight or to launch ambushes against the SS.
It's unlikely that the Jews started the uprising with more than a hundred firearms, most were captured from the SS troops themselves. The Germans CLAIMED to only have lost seventeen killed and a hundred and one wounded. That's in heavy fighting lasting nearly a full month. The Germans committed at least 3,000 troops, a handful of tank plus, heavy artillery and assault guns to the destruction. Personally I find that level of casualties for the time and intensity of the combat impossible to believe. The SS wasn't going to admit that a bunch of Jews were capable of inflicting serious losses on "elite" Waffen SS troops. The numbers had to be doctored. The Germans compared the fighting to Stalingrad which was a meatgrinder.

 

[struth]

I don't know where you get your "facts" but here's an excerpt from an article in weapons and Warfare:
With typical Teutonic efficiency, the SS collected and catalogued all the weapons that they had captured or recovered after the battle. It was not an impressive haul, considering the doggedness of the resistance that the Germans had encountered. Of course, many weapons were not recovered, being buried under collapsed buildings, destroyed by fire or taken out of the ghetto by the surviving fighters. The SS listed just seven Polish, one Russian and one German rifle captured, along with fifty-nine pistols of various makes, several hundred hand grenades, Molotov cocktails and home-made explosives. The SS also recovered 1,240 German uniforms that the resisters often used to travel around the ghetto during the fight or to launch ambushes against the SS.
It's unlikely that the Jews started the uprising with more than a hundred firearms, most were captured from the SS troops themselves. The Germans CLAIMED to only have lost seventeen killed and a hundred and one wounded. That's in heavy fighting lasting nearly a full month. The Germans committed at least 3,000 troops, a handful of tank plus, heavy artillery and assault guns to the destruction. Personally I find that level of casualties for the time and intensity of the combat impossible to believe. The SS wasn't going to admit that a bunch of Jews were capable of inflicting serious losses on "elite" Waffen SS troops. The numbers had to be doctored. The Germans compared the fighting to Stalingrad which was a meatgrinder.

yea, thanks for the facts and i agree rhe national socialist were not going to admit the real numbers

 

[AZrailwhale]

Yea. That's safe

If you're the youngest person in the house, it's perfectly safe. The idea of locks and gun safes is a very recent one. Up until recently most guns were kept in cabinets with glass fronts for display or even wall racks. Kids were trained in gun safety early.

 

[watchingfromafar]

Just a REMINDER​

"Tombstone had much more restrictive laws on carrying guns in public in the 1880s than it has today,” Same goes for most of the New West, to varying degrees, in the once-rowdy frontier towns of Nevada, Kansas, Montana, and South Dakota.

Dodge City, Kansas, formed a municipal government in 1878. According to Stephen Aron, a professor of history at UCLA, the first law passed was one prohibiting the carry of guns in town, likely by civic leaders and influential merchants who wanted people to move there, Cultivating a reputation of peace and stability was necessary, even in boisterous towns, if it were to become anything more transient than a one-industry boom town.

Laws regulating ownership and carry of firearms, apart from the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment, were passed at a local level rather than by Congress. “Gun control laws were adopted pretty quickly in these places,” says Winkler. “Most were adopted by municipal governments exercising self-control and self-determination.” Carrying any kind of weapon, guns or knives, was not allowed other than outside town borders and inside the home. When visitors left their weapons with a law officer upon entering town, they'd receive a token, like a coat check, which they'd exchange for their guns when leaving town.

Louisiana, too, upheld an early ban on concealed carry firearms. When a Kentucky court reversed its ban, the state constitution was amended to specify the Kentucky general assembly was within its rights to, in the future, regulate or prohibit concealed carry.
-

 

[Rigby5]

Just a REMINDER​

"Tombstone had much more restrictive laws on carrying guns in public in the 1880s than it has today,” Same goes for most of the New West, to varying degrees, in the once-rowdy frontier towns of Nevada, Kansas, Montana, and South Dakota.

Dodge City, Kansas, formed a municipal government in 1878. According to Stephen Aron, a professor of history at UCLA, the first law passed was one prohibiting the carry of guns in town, likely by civic leaders and influential merchants who wanted people to move there, Cultivating a reputation of peace and stability was necessary, even in boisterous towns, if it were to become anything more transient than a one-industry boom town.

Laws regulating ownership and carry of firearms, apart from the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment, were passed at a local level rather than by Congress. “Gun control laws were adopted pretty quickly in these places,” says Winkler. “Most were adopted by municipal governments exercising self-control and self-determination.” Carrying any kind of weapon, guns or knives, was not allowed other than outside town borders and inside the home. When visitors left their weapons with a law officer upon entering town, they'd receive a token, like a coat check, which they'd exchange for their guns when leaving town.

Louisiana, too, upheld an early ban on concealed carry firearms. When a Kentucky court reversed its ban, the state constitution was amended to specify the Kentucky general assembly was within its rights to, in the future, regulate or prohibit concealed carry.
-

Totally wrong.
All states always protected the individual right to be armed.
They only made laws against concealed carry because there was no need for concealed carry, since almost everyone was openly armed, and it was considered that only criminals concealed their firearms.

{...
the several States to have a militia composed of citizens (i.e. the organized, and unorganized militia, as defined by the Efficiency In Militia Act of 1903) remains an issue of public debate. However, the constitutions of 31 states expressly protect an individual right to keep and bear arms (Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming). Case law in 9 other states (Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Wisconsin) protects the individual right, making a total of 40 states that expressly protect an individual right to keep and bear arms.

The constitutions of Missouri (1875), North Carolina (1875), Colorado (1876), Montana (1889), and New Mexico (1912) explicitly prohibited concealed carry. Further, the constitutions of Kentucky (1850), Louisiana (1879), Mississippi (1890) and Idaho (1978) permitted their respective Legislatures to regulate or prohibit concealed carry. This is because concealing weapons used to be thought of as a practice done exclusively by criminals.[1]
...}

History of concealed carry in the United States - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org