Before assholery and a blind Supreme Court took over gun talk, the West was a hotspot of gun...
control, largely because it had to be.
Tombstone AZ had tougher gun rules in the 1880's than it does now, as did much of the West. It still had a fair amount of shootouts, thanks largely to the number of guns and bars. Not everybody handed their guns into the local Marshall's office.
Cowboys, not a complimentary or folksy term as it is now, were largely ruffians, smugglers, thieves, and assorted criminals. The Clanton gag was a pretty bad one, and the Earps were trying to get their guns and stop them from selling stolen horses to the Mexicans. Dead Clantons showed the folks that gun control was not a bad thing.
Things often ignored in the telling were that the big gunfight was less than a minute long, and was actually a couple of blocks from the OK Corral. But the story got bigger with every telling. Less important at the time seemed to be that most of the gang guys were ex-Confederate soldiers who were happily used to thievery and killing. That Mexicans and Chinese did most of the actual work allowed racism to still work its ill magic. There were undoubtedly ex-slaves around, but they haven't made the records of the times.
I'll shut up now, but starting to look at gun control in the Old West leads to some interesting reading.
