From: Secret Squirrel <nobody@secret.squirrel.owl.de>
Date: Sun, 2 Nov 1997 14:06:49 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: democracy?! (Re: Terrorism is a NON-THREAT (fwd)
Message-ID: <9217d0b2a7cb5c14a35269732b7d57a7@squirrel>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Adam Back wrote:
>[Ed Note: Jim Choate wrote:]
>> At the height of the range wars there were only 9 murders
>> associated with the conflict, not hundreds as the popular
>> entertainment media and spin-doctor culture would have you
>> believe. Get your fucking facts straight.
>
>I know, that was my point; recall that I said the murder rate was
>low.  The point was there were way less laws, and few were telling
>their neighbours what they could think.

It's not hard to believe that this was the case in some places and in
some times, but a term like the "Wild West" covers a lot of time and
territory.

For example, in San Francisco in the early 1860s there was a very high
murder rate, something like 1000 people were killed in one year and
nobody was convicted.  (Forgive minor factual errors as I haven't
studied this in awhile.)  I have also read reports of substantial
violence in the mining communities of Nevada and California with
minimal enforcement action taken.  It seems likely to me that the low
murder rate claim has some exceptions, even if we ignore the mutual
atrocities between various native groups, Americans, and Mexicans.

I would also like to see how pervasive the temperance movement was in
the Wild West.  By the late nineteenth century my impression is that
it was going strong in the Wild West although it possibly hadn't
grasped the levers of power yet.

>> Face off's at high-noon simply didn't happen and poeple didn't run
>> around having gun fights all the time.
>
>Right!

I'm pretty sure there were gunfights, but that they happened a lot
more quickly and a lot less formally than we see on TV.  But, I could
believe that overall they happened infrequently.  Anybody have a
reference?

I am told that knife fighting was a lot more common than is widely
known.  A lot of poor runaways showed up to work in various mining
towns and they were unable to afford expensive toys like guns.

Monty Cantsin
Editor in Chief
Smile Magazine
http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html
http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.htm

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