Who Would Have Guessed, Gun Control Failed in 1881 Also

By NRAHQ

Fairfax, VA – -(Ammoland.com)- An article for Smithsonian magazine (Matt Jancer, Gun Control Is as Old as the Old West), reviews the ordinances of Tombstone, Arizona, and other frontier towns in the 1880s, observing that the gun control laws of the time were imposed at the local level, and that bearing arms was a “heavily regulated business.”

The notorious Gunfight at the O.K Corral arose, it seems, because “Marshall Virgil Earp, having deputized his brothers Wyatt and Morgan and his pal Doc Holliday, [was] having a gun control problem.”

Tombstone (with a population that hovered around 3,500) had enacted Ordinance No. 9, effective April 1881, to prohibit carrying any deadly weapon within city limits “without first obtaining a permit in writing.” Later that year, lawman Earp’s brothers had charged one Isaac (“Ike”) Clanton with violating the ordinance in the context of escalating animosity between Clanton, the Earps, and Holliday. Clanton’s rifle was seized, and a judge fined him $25 and another $2.50 in court costs. The sheriff later intervened to …Read the Rest

Source:: AmmoLand