Wild West America..........................jeez, I had to go there

In the wild west everyone had a gun. Gun violence was at an all time high. People killed each other over poker games because they were drunk and got out of control while holding a gun.

I don't want guns to be taken away. But when the Right wing acts as ignorant as to believe we haven't already been where they want to go, then it's time to re-educate them.

Lets hear some justification for this one. Or the typical read and not respond to a brainy thread...

 

The justifications will lead us all over the board. I can predict it now. "Teachers won't be drunk" as if kids don't push tempers more than anything in the world.

 

If a teacher would harm their students, you have a MUCH bigger problem than the tool they used to do it.

Anyway, we are not the Wild West, not even close, and gun control has been relatively lax lately.

So I give this thread an F for sensationalism and absurdity.

 

Ayuh,.... Seems to be quite common for this poster to post about what she knows Nothing about...

 

The reality of the West was that life was quite boring - as one would expect in an agrarian society. Except for a very few locations in a very short time frame, there were no gunfights.

 

Ayuh,.... Agreed,... The Op has been watchin' too much Tv....

 

Im no right winger but you got an F on the parts in bold.

 

I like the idea of the Wild West in America.

It'll make a man outta ya.

That's why I voted for Gary Johnson

 

Read "little house on the prairie' for an account of pioneer life out west.

Not a gunfight from one cover to the other.

 

Normally I'd take something written like that as a hunk of flamebait from an entirely close minded poster. But you've shown some glimmers of open mindedness in the past so I'll give you the benifit of the doubt here.

So the first thing, as noted by other posters, is that the "wild west" actually had a relatively low crime rate compared to today, even with a lot of drunkenness and an incredibly testosterone fuled environment often without effective law enforcement in place. I'm sure I could provide you some links with all of a minute of googling. Actually why not?

http://www.examiner.com/article/dispelling-the-myth-of-the-wild-west
http://www.guncite.com/wild_west_myth.html

Feel free to try and find statistics that indicate otherwise.


The rates are even lower if you don't count duels that took place through mutual consent as homicides. Even if you keep those, I'd like to point out that people had been managing to duel with swords and daggars for quite some time. In this capacity firearms added a bit of dignity as the previous sword and daggar duels had a tendency to end with two mortally wounded individuals wrestling on the ground and biting each other. But I suppose that's drifting off topic.

In any case I do not get the impressing that the right wingers out there want to remove the police from towns or open tons of brothels. Well, maybe the libertarians, but I don't think you're talking about them in any case.

 

You assume where we are today in our soft little padded society is actually better than where we were. I suppose it depends on how you define "better." We're certainly safer. But at what cost? We've also become considerably softer and weaker as a people. We're a lot more frightened now by trivial things and a lot more helpless than we used to be. We rely too heavily on other people and external forces like the government to do things for us that we used to be able to do for ourselves. We've become whiny and spoiled and most of us can't even fight well enough to defend ourselves against minimal danger. In evolutionary terms, we're ripe for extinction.

Your fear of things returning to the days of saloon shootouts is a great example of what I mean about how we are more afraid now. Nothing the right wants is that extreme, but your mind automatically goes there because you need reassurance and security and are terrified of somebody else not being there to protect you. Because you have no faith in your own ability to protect yourself.