Katherine Benton-Cohen, an Arizona native and history professor at Georgetown University, provides important historical perspective on the old, Wild West Arizona, and 19th century Tombstone's embrace of gun control.
For all the talk of the “Wild West,” the policymakers of 1880 Tombstone—and many other Western towns—were ardent supporters of gun control. When people now compare things to the “shootout at the OK Corral,” they mean vigilante violence by gunfire. But this is exactly what the Tombstone town council had been trying to avoid.
In late 1880, as regional violence ratcheted up, Tombstone strengthened its existing ban on concealed weapons to outlaw the carrying of any deadly weapons within the town limits. The Earps (who were Republicans) and Doc Holliday maintained that they were acting as law officers—not citizen vigilantes—when they shot their opponents. That is to say, they were sworn officers whose jobs included enforcement of Tombstone’s gun laws.
Today, in contrast, Arizonans can legally buy guns without licenses, and are able to carry concealed weapons without a permit. The state bans cities from passing their own, stricter laws. The legislature will consider a bill this session that would force schools to allow guns on campus — like Pima Community College, which the alleged shooter attended....
Arizonans, myself included, love to tout their vaunted independence and Western values. But when we perpetuate the idea that Arizona is some unchanging Wild West, we fall into the trap of a myth that only serves to embolden those who refuse to support commonsense restrictions on purchasing firearms.
Even the Tombstone town council of 1880 realized that some people with guns have intent to kill—and that reasonable laws could help stop them.
Commonsense restrictions would not prevent sane people with common sense from having their guns for target practice or hunting or collecting or personal protection. But commonsense restrictions could at the very least make it harder for disturbed and violent people to get their hands on guns and kill 9 year-old girls. The local government in Wild West Tombstone got that more than a century ago. Why can't we get that now?