In Frontier days even kids walked around with guns - but they weren’t killing each other like the druggies and gangs of today.
So strange how the anti-gun people think!
In the frontier times the “frontier” was actually west of Eastern mountains
Between the Civil War and 1900 there were less firearms killings than in just one year in New York City had back then
“The Wild Wild West” is mostly early novels, TV, movies
People carried firearms yes
But numbers killed by certain outlaws was most times inflated
When Bat Masterson moved to New York City to become a sports repoter for a newspaper he kept a drawer in his desk full of old beatup wood Colt grips with notches cut into them
He sold those to the city dudes!
He would buy “takeoffs” (old worn out or cracked grips) from gunsmiths
Cut notches in them
Rub tobacco juice and dirt in the notches and oil the grips
Nobody cut notches in their own grips
Or some drunken idiot would try to prove he was better
Bat Masterson could shoot a running rabbit from horseback with his Colt revolver - An impossible shot to make
He was an expert sharpshooter
His reputation kept him alive
Even in NYC!