Americans have a skewed vision of “The Good Old Days”.
I’m an old woman. I grew up in the “Wild West” or what was left of it. My Mother was from a one street town in southern Utah. Her Dad was the Sheriff and the Justice of the Peace. In her town guns were checked at the sheriffs office till you left town. Open carry was considered a threat.
Dad grew up on a cattle ranch. The “Good old days” were so “Good” that when he was 10, with two younger siblings, his mother died. His alcoholic father couldn’t care for him so he and siblings were shipped off to anyone who’d take them. His Uncle Earl needed ranch hands so off he went. He worked the ranch for 6 years. NEVER carried a handgun. Said they were only good for shooting rattlesnakes and not much good for that cause they were so inaccurate. He used to laugh at the western TV shows of the fifties. Said he wished it had been like the shows. At 16 he was hired as an armed guard on a cattle train shipping to California. He was given side arms to carry. He said they were undependable and VERY inaccurate but were ok for rattlesnakes.
When the train pulled in to Los Angeles in 1922 he wanted to see the “big city” so off he went to explore. This 16 year old kid with hay in his hair and packing two loaded guns. He said he walked around for a while and a policeman tapped him on the shoulder. The nice beat cop (they still had them then) said “Son, we don’t wear our guns in town, you’ll have to put them away.” He took them back to the train, went on his way and never went back to the “Wild West”. He also never carried a gun again. He kept a .22 rifle in the house and we all learned how to use it but never had to. Mother hated the thing.
We grew up hearing stories of the “Old West”. True stories of the dirt and hard work and $30 a month pay, one day off a month, outhouses, snakes in the kitchen; all the lovely things about living on what was still the frontier. We were taught that a gun was a tool, like a hammer. A tool is only used in the proper manner. Once you picked up a gun all other options are cancelled.
THERE WAS NOTHING ROMANTIC ABOUT THE OLD WEST. It was hard, dirty and difficult. Hand guns were rare and NOBODY carried an AR15. Guns weren’t cheap. Money was hard to come by so you bought a rifle. It was at least useful for hunting.
My family has been in every war this country has had from the French-Indian war before the Revolution to Iraq. I had one Brother-in-Law who had a bunch of guns but he was an avid hunter and everyone thought he was a little weird.
I’ve been watching this second amendment fight for years and it doesn’t make anymore sense now than 50 years ago. California has been a liberal state forever (except for those awful Reagan years). Californians still have all the damned guns they want. Nobody has tried to take them away. If you lose the right to own a gun it means you’ve f—ked up. Carrying a side arm WILL NOT MAKE YOU “DIRTY HARRY”.