[R. Scott]

...will there still be room for the "Wild West" image often associated with the ordinance?

Strange. In nearly every old “Wild West” movie and TV series the towns had “No Guns Allowed” ordinances.

[AmericaUnited]

In nearly every old “Wild West” movie and TV series the towns had “No Guns Allowed” ordinances.

Most of those old Wild West movies where some gang rides into town and terrorizes it's citizens are complete Hollywood fiction. 99% of the citizens in those towns had guns, could shoot very well, all the way down to the children. Bad guys riding into town would have faced a barrage of lead from all sides.

[FreedomPoster]

Then there's the fact that the "Wild Wild West" was pretty tame by the standards of, say, modern U.S. urban ghettos.

Look at the demography. The West was largely settled by men who had fought the Civil War, and their direct progeny. These weren't lily-livered wimps likely to put up with much bad behavior, before taking care of business with firearms.

[Inyo-Mono]

Strange. In nearly every old “Wild West” movie and TV series the towns had “No Guns Allowed” ordinances.

And in real life too. Most Old West cow-towns had ordinances against carrying firearms within city limits. In Texas in the 1870s you had to prove that you were a "traveler" to legally carry a firearm on your person.

[Gritty]

Treat Them to a Good Dose of Lead (Why the 'Wild West' was not what Liberals claim-my title)

[archy]

...will there still be room for the "Wild West" image often associated with the ordinance?

Strange. In nearly every old “Wild West” movie and TV series the towns had “No Guns Allowed” ordinances.

Those were the towns in which the sheriffs and other officials either received payoffs from the proprietors of saloons and houses of gambling and/or prostitution, or were partial or sole owners of those establishments themselves. Mustn't have anything disrupt the old cash flow, y'know.

Sometimes, as with the Earps in Tombstone, competing criminal gangs were a threat worth trying to suppress; in others, as in Bannock, Montana, the crooked cops' concern came from local citizens who formed Vigilance Committees, one reason why such citizens' groups are despised by corrupt law enforcers yet today.

But is you happen to visit Montana today, on the sleeves of the Montana Highway Patrol, you'll still see the symbol of the vigilante group that cleaned up their town and hanged the thieving sheriff: 3-7-77....