Replies

It sure was 'wild' to the people who lived in cities with paved sidewalks and streets that didn't turn to mud when it rained. Why, it was full of "wild" Indians and "wild" cowboys and hardly a symphony or opera to be found. People used horses and mules and wagons and buggies (just like people back east did). Hmmmmm. Harpers wanted to sell magazines, too, and Buffalo Bill achieved fame and fortune doing a traveling show. Despite the untamed land (not under plow, nor street, nor a building), the people were held to much the same social constraints as people elsewhere.

The biggest killers were disease and accidents.

Nowadays, Police are people, too (or so I have heard). They open carry for the most part.

You can open carry in a way that is not so obvious, but the mere presence of a firearm is not an invitation to a shoot-out, concealed or otherwise. People tend not to pick fights when there is a reasonable possibility it may get them hurt or killed.

When it is really hot, a small breeze can 'print' your firearm, placing you in violation of concealed carry statutes because your sidearm is no longer technically concealed.

No one is calling for inner city 13-year olds, nor psychopaths nor drunks to be running around with a handgun or other firearms, but when I was a kid, we carried our rifles often in a rural setting, and the neighbors thought nothing of it. (I started deer hunting at the ripe old age of nine, and harvested my first at 11--after having put dozens of ducks on the table.)

It would be nice to be able to transport a hunting or target shooting arm to my vehicle without having to wrap it up and disguise it for fear someone was going to go ballistic and call out SWAT for me going off to the range to sight in a new scope or check out some ammo.