-Elmo
Miguel A. Faria, Jr, MD is a retired professor of Neurosurgery and Medical History at Mercer University School of Medicine. He founded Hacienda Publishing and is Associate Editor in Chief in Neuropsychiatry and World Affairs of Surgical Neurology International. He served on the CDC’s Injury Research Grant Review Committee. This article is excerpted, updated, and edited from his book, America, Guns, and Freedom: A Journey Into Politics and the Public Health & Gun Control Movements (2019).
were peaceful towns, except for the quarrels in the carousing and gambling saloons. Otherwise, both towns carried on well, and everyone not interested in whoring, drinking, and gun fighting were left alone.
ReplyDeleteThe same can be said of Chicago in the 20s, roaring and modern.
It was a society of young males, often outnumbering women by as much as 25 to 1 (if not more), no law for hundreds of miles in many cases, many carrying a grudge over the late Unpleasantness Between The States, liquor flowing freely, all armed if only for protection against animals and the truculent aborigines, and the occasional dispute over the promise of considerable wealth.
McGrath also studies a couple of towns in apparently the 1890s, when things were calming down, so the analysis has a few holes in it.
Well put and cogent, edutcher.
Delete"What's different between these places and modern Chicago?"
Delete"How dare you bring race into this!"
"An armed society is a polite society."
ReplyDeleteThe End
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'Gunfighters, Highwaymen and Vigilantes: Violence on the Frontier' by Roger D. McGrath is an excellent read. There aren't many books written with the attention to detail that Professor McGrath gives to the factual histories of Bodie, CA and Aurora, NV.
ReplyDeleteThe book gives the reader an interesting view of the violence of the Old West as compared to the violence of today.
That's the book that really kicked off my interest/obsession with Trans-Sierra mining camp history. I highly recommend it.
DeleteI bought that book on a trip to Yosemite in 1988, it surprises me pleasantly to see it's widely enough known that you've both read it.
DeleteIt was recommended to me by our host, Mr. Lane. Every book he's recommended to me has pretty much been a page turner.
DeleteOf course, some of us have known for decades that the west was not as it is portrayed in Hollywood. This is not new news,actually. Most society was "normal" and people who regularly carried guns were considered, if not outlaws, with a good deal of suspicion. Hollywood has unfortunately affected many areas of culture. Probably one of the most classic cases is Davy Crockett. He was never known as Davy. His name was David and that is what he went by. No one ever called him Davy. He never once in his entire life ever wore a coonskin cap. Pure Hollywood bullshit. People have believed it ever since.
ReplyDeleteHollywierd manages to fuck up everything, for the most part, seldom getting it right, but always right in their own perverted minds. As is portrayed in al the westerns where the cowpoke always wore a 6 shooter. Truth be know they seldom did, 6 Shooters were expensive for cowboys, they were heavy, were always in the way, and cumbersome to drag around all day. A lot of em carried rifles, and generally left em on the horses till they needed em. Old pictures showing a bunch of cowpokes armed to the hilt, they were usually posing for Eastern based photo ops or were engaged in hunting parties. At least thats the majority of pics I've seen and read about.
ReplyDeleteActually, most cowboys DID carry revolvers. They were no more expensive to them than a new revolver is to us, and no more in the way to them than one would be to us unless human anatomy has changed in the past 150 years. As far as being too heavy, I carry a S&W 357 around all day, every day that's just as heavy and just as in the way.
DeleteThey were a tool used for predators (both human and beast), pot-shotting game, turning stampeding herds and last but not least, shooting your own horse if you lost your seat and had a foot hung in the stirrup.
Now, townspeople and farmers? Not so much. They just didn't need that tool. That would be like me carrying a hammer around all day.
IF we had Constitutional carry in all 50 states, the crime rate would be cut in half.
ReplyDeleteJust as an aside. My mother played a tuba in high school donated by BB's Wild West Show. It had a bullet hole in the bell.
ReplyDeleteHowever, when things got violent they could be very violent. There are three Indian battlefields within three hours of my house, one just ten minutes away. There's a marker, just an hour away, commemorating a wagon party that was wiped out by "hostiles." Mostly peaceful doesn't mean much when you're up to your ass in Indians. :-)