Going Heels In Wild West America, 2017

WHEN WYATT EARP (pronounced "arp") was the law in dodge City in the 1870s, anybody who came to town carrying a gun was required to leave the piece with Wyatt. When you left town, you could stop by Wyatt's office and collect it. Throughout the 1870s, the supposed height of the "wild west" era of frontier lawlessness, there averaged about one gun related death per year in dodge city, Kansas. Nobody stood in the middle of Front street, and engaged in quick draw gun fights. Nobody was ever that stupid. Compared to the old wild west, our modern wild west is much, much wilder. There are upwards of twenty thousand murders per year in contemporary America, which on a per capita basis makes the old frontier days look positively tame. Until 1977, the national Rifle Association was primarily concerned with gun safety education, and efficient regulation of hunting. Then, something drastic happened. The organization was taken over by a hard right wing group of extremists, in whose hands it remains today. When my good friend forty years ago was a member, there were roughly one million NRA members; today, its closer to five million. Intense firearm advocacy appeals to a larger portion of the population that simple gun safety, it seems. There is an aggressive, well organized and well paid gun lobby in every state, and the NRA is deeply embedded within the republican, lock, stock, and barrel. Because of NRA lobbying and working in concert with the gun toting right wing, there is now a right to carry guns, either open carry or conceal carry, in nearly every state in these United States. The very fact that some states have a requirement that guns being carried be seen by the world, while other states require that they be concealed from all but God, is itself a cause for alarm, or should be. After all this fuss, why do we not know for sure which system is better? When will we find out? Are we sure that everyone, every one of the millions of heat packing Americans in our midst is in fact a "good guy with a gun", ready at the sound of a shot to defend the innocent, against the 'bad guy with a gun"? My grandfather, who was born in Nebraska in 1887 once said, "put a gun in a man's hand, and the first thing he wants to do is use it". granddad, a product of the frontier west, probably knew what he was talking about. Up until recently, anyone wanting to carry a gun wa required to undergo a background check, pay a fee, and take a firearm safety course to be certified as a gun carrying good guy citizen. But that has proven too burdensome for the NRA. So now there are twelve states in which no permission is needed whatever; if you want to carry a gun, by damn, you just carry one, without any sort of preliminary process of certification. Certification free gun carrying. The NRA is trying to normalize the carrying of guns. They want us to become accustomed to guns being carried on college campuses, day care centers, supermarkets, restaurants; all public places. The NRA wants an America in which most people carry guns in most places, which is exactly what we are becoming, because most people are good guys, and will surely prevent bad guys from doing bad things. Vaguely, an uneasy feeling creeps into the back of one's mind. And one thing's for damned sure: Wyatt Earp would have been appalled at the wild westness of America in the year 2017.