The popular notion of the Wild West is a creation of show business that started with Wild Bill Cody and continues to this day in Hollywood.
There’s quite a bit of historical research that indicates that life was not nearly as violent as Hollywood would have you believe. For example, Dodge City, of Gunsmoke fame, had a grand total of 15 violent deaths from 1876-1885, a murder rate of 1.5 per year. Gunsmoke portrayed a few murders per week during its twenty year run on television.