So Sebastian is talking about Adam Winker’s drivel about gun control in the old west. Sebastian smacks it out of the park with this one:
I don’t find the argument to be that remarkably compelling that because some towns in the Wild West enacted prohibitions on carrying firearms that such prohibitions must therefore be constitutional. All manner of rights were likely flagrantly violated in frontier towns in ways that would not meet with constitutional approval under modern standards. I seem to recall hanging horse thieves was a fairly common practice on the frontier, but I would still question whether the practice should inform us as to whether imposing the death penalty for car thieves amounts to a violation of the 8th Amendment.
Now that statement spawned a whole lot of discussion about messed up things that happened in the old west that are not done or tolerated today.
Because various cowboy towns banned the possession of guns by travelers, its obvious that US cities can ban possession of firearms. (Now I’ll note that I’m not old west historian, but I believe if you LIVED in Dodge City, or Tombstone, or the many other towns that required visitors to check firearms at the Sheriff’s office, you could posses and carry all the guns you wanted)**UPDATE** This guy IS, go have a read!
Of course many of these towns honored bounties on Buffalo and Indian scalps. Also most of these towns had legalized gambling, and these were the days LONG before the war on drugs, so a kid could walk into the local druggist and buy Laudanum without so much as a prescription. Also Brothels were a HUGE business in the old west.
Of course those who think gun control is a good idea are drastically opposed to these ideas. As a matter of fact almost all the moderate Republican RINOs have abandoned the gun control issue entirely leaving only hardline Authoritarian “Progressives” who have a deep contempt for such Libertarian philosophies, even the recreational use of drugs, which was such a darling of the Baby Boom generation.
We of course also see such all-or-nothing arguments used to counter Constitutional Originalists who point out that the idea of infringing on the keeping and bearing of arms was deemed totally foolish and downright suicidal for a nation that had won its independence by force against one of the most powerful armies in the world.
The Antis will quickly counter that our Founding Fathers also owned Negros, and their wives and daughters weren’t much better than the slave property as they couldn’t own property or vote.
What the antis seem to miss, of course is that the constitution was actually amended to fix these problems, but no such act has been done pertaining to the right to keep and bear arms.
Still the Founding Fathers were just men, and fallible men, so all of their actions can be considered suspect of being mistakes.
Now on the other hand if we were to say point out a shooting in Boston, or Chicago, or New York City…and better yet show the shooter to be an under-age gang member and convicted felon, this in no way proves gun control’s folly!
They strive for a time when there is ZERO “Gun Deaths”, because we should settle for nothing short of divine perfection, but if their laws don’t achieve their lofty goals we shouldn’t be so picky…and certainly not if crime rates actually RISE.
I think we can safely call the lot of them crazy, can’t we?
And lets not forget that much of the old west was not part of the US. They were not states yet, and had not applied to join the US yet. . . this was the frontear and not subject to US laws for the most part. . . . it was more common law than anything else. The did not have to follow the second amendment.