Never let it be said that Mr. Gabby Giffords will let a fund-raising opportunity go unexploited. Here he is in a recent email blast (h/t Chip K.) asking for a petition signature, but you can bet the beg-a-thon will commence shortly thereafter. And what’s his hook? Captain Fantastic explains that even that exemplar of lawlessness and wanton gunplay, Tombstone, Arizona, was ultimately wise enough to enact common sense gun control back when Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday were jangling their spurs. Wait, doesn’t the Gun Control Industrial Complex always warn us that unless we restrict Americans’ constitutionally enshrined right to keep and bear arms, we’ll have blood flowing in the streets just like they did back in the Wild West? So…should we fear becoming like the Wild West or emulate it? It’s so hard to keep up . . .

Dear Charles,

When Gabby served in Congress, she represented Tombstone, Arizona.

You know the folklore: the OK Corral, the town that’s too tough to die, a symbol of grit and the Western ethos of gun ownership.

But you might be surprised to learn that even Tombstone took action to reduce gun violence, enacting gun safety measures that stopped visiting outlaws from carrying their firearms in bars and around town.

I share the story because many of our current attitudes about guns are derived from our origins as a frontier nation. The gun lobby draws on the popular but false myth that we kept order in the Old West by having good guys with guns go after bad guys with guns. But a history lesson tells us that our nation’s approach to guns has always held up both our rights and our commitment to keeping our communities safe.

In the aftermath of terrible tragedies like those that occurred at Newtown, Aurora, Tucson, and now Navy Yard, Americans expect meaningful legislative action that – like the policies of Tombstone, Arizona over 100 years ago – protects our rights and protects our communities.

That’s why over 75,000 people have signed our petition calling on Congress to revisit legislation to keep our communities safe from gun violence. Add your name to theirs today.

http://action.americansforresponsiblesolutions.org/tombstone

It’s unfortunate that it takes a national tragedy to re-ignite the conversation about gun violence in America. The tragic mass shooting at the Navy Yard occurred only blocks from a Congress that has repeatedly passed on making it harder for the dangerously mentally ill to obtain guns.

Let’s make sure they hear our voice this time.

Mark Kelly
Americans for Responsible Solutions

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

70 COMMENTS

  2. Those disarming laws in Tombstone only applied within the city limits, and it was a city you could walk from end to end in less than 5 minutes. Furthermore, Earp and his brothers ran things in that town. Very little happened that they weren’t intimately aware of. People mostly did their robbin’ outside of town, because you couldn’t get away with it in inside. Why? Because the people with the guns were 90 seconds away, if that. If somebody hollered, “Hey, they’re fightin’ at the Gem!” the cops only had to come from four doors down, if they weren’t already in a room upstairs. Unless you live across the street from a cop shop, absolutely none of that is true today. In-town response times in Tombstone were likely on the order of a quarter of what we have today, if not less. You are your own first responder.

    • Great analogy, Matt! I live about 25 minutes from “the town to tough to die”…

      I’ve always chuckled when the asshat’s would talk about “blood flowing in the streets, etc….”

      But give Mr. Giffords some credit…

      He’s doing everything in his limited power to keep the gravy train flowing into his pocket.

      One has to wonder if he ever looks back, and would of, should of, could of…

      When gabby threw herself at him in China, knowing full well he was married with children…

      • I wonder if the space cadet already has someone on the side? I surmise he’s in it for the celebrity and power as well as the cash.

      • What I give Mark Kelly credit for is his “lying by omission” WRT old Tombstonee’s gun law:

        Ordinance No.9, Town of Tombstone, Arizona:

        “To Provide against Carrying of Deadly Weapons” (effective April 19, 1881).

        Section 1. It is hereby declared unlawful to carry in the hand or upon the person or

        otherwise any deadly weapon within the limits of said city of Tombstone, without first

        obtaining a permit in writing.

        Section 2: This prohibition does not extend to persons immediately leaving or entering

        the city, who, with good faith, and within reasonable time are proceeding to deposit, or

        take from the place of deposit such deadly weapon.

        Section 3: All fire-arms of every description, and bowie knives and dirks, are included

        within the prohibition of this ordinance.

        Hmmm: “…permit in writing…”

        Isn’t that like a state-issued License to Carry a Handgun?

  3. Yes and leaving your guns with the sheriff worked well back when populations were small. oh and the OK Corral was due to cowboys refusing to check their weapons and another point Mr.Giffords how many criminals do you know that follow the law??

    • Leaving out the fact that the Tombstone “Gun Free Zone” experiment was a blatant violation of the Second Amendment…

      1. It was arbitrarily enforced enforce by self-appointed local tyrants who themselves ignored other local law enforcement (corrupt though the Sheriff was). Doc Holiday, among others, seems to have been exempt from this gun control law, but then he worked in the Earp’s saloon.
      2. In that time the majority of men open carried. It was not that difficult for armed men to meet people at the city limits and take their visible weapons.
      3. Plenty of “illegal” weapons still wound up in town, otherwise the Earp’s could have just sat in their saloon and played poker all night and the Clantons would not have been armed [across from] the OK Corral.

      I give up, it’s too easy to shoot holes in this argument, but then logic is not at play here, is it? Just another emotional gun control plea to people too lazy or ignorant to discover the facts for themselves.

      • The law did not provide for disarmament at the town outskirts. Guns were to be turned in at the Sheriff’s/marshall’s office or the first bar you rolled into. Guns could be recovered when you were ready to leave town. Ike Clanton had been badly pistol-whipped by Wyatt Earp for violating the rules, and had just recovered his pistol from bar prior to leaving town when his kin showed up.

        • Thanks, M. The details as I remember them from too many variations of the story in Hollywood movies are of course subject to correction.

          It does not change the fact that any such laws were then and still are now violations of our natural, civil and Constitutionally protected RKBA.

  4. According to the letter we have to chose *between* our rights and keeping our communities safe. That is telling. My responsible gun ownership does not endanger my community. The dangerous communities in our nation are the ones where multitudes of violent criminals take residence. The locations ripe for a mass shooting are “Gun Free Zones,” where a single armed psychopath can wreak havoc for some time before they are confronted by an armed defender.

    Were I to keep my firearms locked in a safe, or give them to the government for destruction, my safety would not be enhanced one iota. Increasing the number of Gun Free Zones, raising the cost of ammunition, or otherwise wasting my tax money with big government projects, will also not enhance my safety.

  5. Another “great” idea! Enacting legislation that would prohibit visiting outlaws from carrying weapons in bars and around town. Now, please explain how to enforce it. Quess they didn’t have problems with non-visiting or resident outlaws at the time.

  6. The OK Corral shootout happened BECAUSE of the gun ban, not in spite of it. The Earps were in the process of confiscating guns when things went sideways. (See also Lexington/Concord.)

  7. We’ve got to reach those that can be convinced, those that have not been fully indoctrinated. I think I need to get involved with some outreach programs. The only place I see information booths are at gun shows. Preaching to the choir. We need booths at colleges, city parks, malls…..

  8. Forgive Mark’s mixed messaging. He is new to civilian disarmament. Plus he already has his guns so now he just needs to milk his wife’s victim status to line their own pockets to live comfortably without having to work. Just like the Clinton Foundation (see the NY Times piece) or Khloe & Lamar’s “charity”.

  9. The British Marine who saved a hundred innocents from genocidal Muslims in last week’s Kenyan Mall attack underscored the necesssity to maintain our cherished Second Amendment rights. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall NOT be infringed (period).

  10. i sent this numbnutt an email reminding him that during the range war the centered around Tombstone, that LEO were on both sides of the fight. Plus, the bad guys didn’t obey the “gun control” law which is why the actual shootout occurred.

  11. Did those laws work then? I seem to remember a few people carrying in town, being that they were already “outlaws”….

    And more blood flows in the streets of Detroit and Chicago every day than most (nonmilitary) wild west shootouts, amiright?

    • Once again, Detroit does NOT have its own set of gun control laws. Gun law in the D follows the same set of laws as the rest of Michigan. We base much of our arguments in fact and logic, so lets keep the facts straight.

      • So then it is important to work out the facts logically. Given that the gun laws in Detroit are the same as everywhere else in Michigan, what are the facts as to why more people in Detroit do not carry open or concealed and live instead in fear? There would appear to be in fact some sort of de facto gun control going on and if we could identify that we may be able to find a way to counter-act it.

        I suggested yesterday that we could mount a campaign to buy-back gun buy-back guns and ship them to Detroit FFLs for sale at cheap prices to residents who qualify along with training and a limited supply of ammo. Does that idea have any merit?

  12. Ah yes; outlaw the outlaw from carrying illegal guns; why don’t they go to the root of the problem and outlaw murder by what ever weapon; What? they already have a law against murder? I am shocked and dismayed, to think a criminal would ignore such a basic law; is that why they are a called criminals? Hmm, I’ll have to think about that.

    In the mean time; let’s pass some more laws against an inanimate object that only law abiding citizens will obey.

    It’s for the children.

    • “Thou shall not kill” has been around for millenia in various wordings and languages, even before it was written down and documented. It is a law that transcends religion and politics. Funny…

      Jewish law, which has had the do not kill law for a very long time (going back to the time of Moses) written in stone, still had problems with people killing people.

      • Will,

        The word in the Torah (aka Old Testament) is “murder”, not “kill” (as it is so often mis-translated. Murder is the taking of innocent life. You never hear of a justifiable murder, ’cause there isn’t one.

  13. “Tombstone took action to reduce gun violence, enacting gun safety measures that stopped visiting outlaws from carrying their firearms . . .”

    1) There it is again, “GUN violence”. I wonder how many stabbings and beatings there were in that “gun free zone”.
    2) And again we see “gun SAFETY” substituted for “CONTROL”. Everybody wants “safety”, right ?
    3) Only “VISITING outlaws” ? Maybe the local outlaws had an agreement with the local politicos, like the Sullivan law was only applied to those hoods who did not co-operate with Tammany Hall.

    • “…like the Sullivan law was only applied to those hoods who did not co-operate with Tammany Hall.”

      And the space cowboy has HIS gun…

  14. Yes, the Earps did ban guns in “their” town, and for the exact same reason modern gun confiscation fetishists have: Control.

    The Earps were thugs who thought they were the only ones who should have guns. Just like their modern counterparts.

    • This. Wyatt ran a gambling hall and was often accused of cheating. Shootouts with the disgruntled were apparently not rare. It was said Earp used his lawman status to put other gambling establishments out of business. Earp was also accused of corruption later in life, for example when working as a boxing referee in San Francisco. It is also known that Earp went on to carry out a vengeance murder outside his jurisdiction, a bit like the Chicago Gangster Disciples Killers of today, no? Some example.

  15. I was enjoying not hearing from Kelly in a while. Just take care of your wife, man, and leave the sheep dogging to us.

  18. Sounds to me like Mr. Gabby Giffords watched Cowboys and Outlaws on the History Channel lately. Also, if a single city wants to enact a statute requiring known gun slingers to turn in their revolver while they are drinking, I guess I could get behind that…as long as they don’t keep a record, of course.

      • I think most of the “worst” progressives (Obama, Biden, Feinstein, Schumer, etc.) never served at all.

        Plus, Chris Kyle was in the Navy (SEALs) too. Don’t write him off.

  20. enacting gun safety measures that stopped visiting outlaws from carrying their firearms

    Visitors — that is, strangers — had to check their guns at the local bar or hotel. Residents, who were known to the Earps, had license. Kinda like the permit system we have in most states today.

  21. What was unconstitutional then is still unconstitutional, plus the Earps were not exactly a bunch of angels. They were just hired guns protecting their own interests and the interests of the ruling elite. Funny how things never change.

  22. Ah, the Earps, better known as “The Fightin Pimps”. Nothing but a gang of criminals and Yankee trash who gained power and tried to keep the other gangs disarmed. Is it any wonder the big government thugs love the Earps?

  25. I understand that Mark Kelly and his group have every right to post and write about their beliefs.

    Their beliefs in gun ownership and gun rights were forever changed when his wife was almost killed in the Tucson attack by a mentally deranged individual.

    Prior to his wife being shot the Kelly’s (both of them) believed in the right to bear arms without any major restrictions. They both enjoyed and touted gun ownership. Gabby was as stout supporter of that right. The shooting changed that. I think any normal person (Dad, Husband, Relative) would have made that same change or something close to it. They had to ask the question about our laws, the mentally challenged, and the ability or ease in which a gun can be acquired. I know I would of if it was my wife, son, friend who was shot and whose life was changed forever.

    There is one thing we can agree on. Tragedy, especially one close to home like Marks does that to an individual.

    Due to his and his wife public lives they are able to get their views out in the national mainstream where the normal poor family who was shot up in South Phoenix may make page four of the paper and never be heard of again. That the way it is in the good oh U.S. of A.

    The one thing we have in this Country is something called the Constitution and in that Constitution besides the 2nd Amendment there is one just before it called the 1st Amendment that protects not only yours but also the Kelly’s freedom of speech. Everyone has that right. The Countries founders thought that right was the most important right and they made it the first of the amendments.

    The Kelly’s are using their freedom of speech right along with their ability to get their message out, which if fine. People may not like the message but this is America, love it or leave it.

    If you are upset about your 2nd Amendment rights being infringed then you have no place complaining about someone using their 1st Amendment rights, which you may not like but hey, there is always Russia…real estate is cheap there….I hear they have an empty apartment at the Moscow airport……I hear Putin may have a place for those who belief that freedom of speech only means your belief counts.

    If you don’t like what Mark is writing or asking for then get off your dupa and join the NRA or other Gun Rights Support Groups….There are many.

    Or you can be apathetic, which by the way is the American way, we forget so easily. Just because gun rights fall back to page two or aren’t the current news story on Google or CNN doesn’t mean people like those in Gifford’s group are resting…..They are moving forward.

    What are you doing to protect those rights?

    • Prior to his wife being shot the Kelly’s (both of them) believed in the right to bear arms without any major restrictions.

      Bullsh1t. Giffords wouldn’t know a which end of a gun to point downrange. It was a political show for her constituents. Giffords was always a social parasite who never worked a day in her life. Marky is now firmly attached to Bloomberg’s and The Joyce Foundation’s enormous tits.

      Criticizing the lies that the Giffords spew on a daily basis has nothing to do with the First Amendment, so please take your sanctimonious claptrap and upstick, sideways.

      • Ralph
        It comments like your that show the real IQ of gun zealots. You can’t take any comment or idea that differs from your own and you then you resort to the typical second grade bully and use vulgar language, puff up you chest, and cry look at me, I can try to bully my views across. It’s people like you who give the fight for our gun rights the bad wrap it has in the news. When they read comments like yours they think all gun owners are just as ignorant.

        • You said it yourself big guy. Love it or leave it. Obviously we love it because we’re using our 1st A right to bash this asshat for trying to change the 2nd. You don’t realize that your being hypocritical do you?

        • “When they read comments like yours they think all gun owners are just as ignorant.” No Jerry, they just think that you are an arrogant elitist jerk. Please sit down now and stay quiet when the adults are speaking.

    • I am so tired of people yammering on about 1st amendment rights whenever someone criticizes their viewpoint. No one is infringing on anyone’s 1st amendment rights by disagreeing with them, debating them, screaming at them, or even telling them to STFU. In fact, that is what the 1st amendment is all about. No one here is arguing that the government should restrict what Kelly is allowed to say, which would actually be a violation of the 1st amendment.

    • How people react to the loss of a friend or acquaintance is highly variable. Some want to blame the gun others understand it was the person behind the gun. I shared an office with a woman named Linda Franklin. You can look her up.

  26. As is usual with grabber’s arguments, laws already exist against ‘outlaws’ carrying guns. Nowhere is it legal for a felon to possess a firearm in any manner. Unless by outlaws he means ‘innocent citizens who might eventually break the law his argument is rendered absurd due to its redundancy. If he does mean the latter however, it is fortunate that we’re protected from this sort of abuse by the due process clause.

    Attempting to affect the moral high ground while arguing for usurpation the natural and constitutional rights of innocent citizens is misleading and low. All this ridiculousness about people having a ‘right’ to be free of ‘gun violence’ is just that, ridiculous. The original phrase may have said ‘. . . life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ but should be read in the context of one’s being able to defend same. It is not as if criminals did not exist during the framing, or that murder (with guns) was unknown to the Founders. It’s rather that they bargained the ills inflicted by free and universal ownership of arms by free citizens was rather less a problem than that of the populace being unarmed, and they were right then and today. Liberty comes at a price, in this case there will be murder with guns (though there would be murder without them), but that cost is substantially less than the price of surrendering the right to arms and of the ensuing defenselessness to criminals and tyrants. Those unwilling to pay the price of liberty aren’t deserving of it. People such as Kelly should remove themselves with all haste to some other country where safety is more dear than liberty and live out his days among others like him who lack either the physical or intellectual courage to pay the price of liberty.

    • I believe that would be China, where civilian gun ownership is tightly controlled, and police and the PLA maintain strict order. It’s a worker’s paradise, I tell you.

  28. “…enacting gun safety measures that stopped visiting outlaws from carrying their firearms in bars and around town.”

    Hmm… My IA CCW allows me to carry firearms in bars (and drink too as long as I don’t hit the magic 0.08% BAL) and I’m pretty sure that visiting outlaws are banned from possessing firearms so don’t we already have “common sense gun laws” now?

  29. The “Wild West”, great example of following the constitution. Lawmen that pistol whipped citizens or hanged them without a fair trial. Women and people of color not allowed to vote. Seizures of land by big business, the railroads. Genocide of the native peoples and the harsh, near genocidal treatment of imported labor(Chinese).

    Yeah, I can understand a progressive wanting to return to the ‘Wild West’ days.

  30. The Earp stuff happened in what…1880? The US constitution (i.e. the 2nd Amendment) didn’t even apply there until at least 1901 (Downes v. Bidwell) or perhaps not until it became a state in 1912. I guess Mr. Astronaut was sick when they taught High School history.

    • If your dates are accurate, Sparky, I stand corrected on my assertion that the Earps were violating the Second Amendment.

      • You are not wrong at all Cliff. The second amendment describes a natural right so it was most definitely being violated at that time.

  33. What a dumbass ,the idiot who shot up the Navy yard had multiple priors and they knew it and he Still got secret clearance to work there. Here is a question for you—– WHY.And you know what else he got clearance for?; a shotgun ,wait,wasn’t he arrested twice befor for gun violations? so did the NICS system not get that info before they cleared him?Oh so then the Courts,Police and NICS check system didn’t work,well then we better ban guns,ya that’ the ( stupid) obvious solution!

  34. It is amazing how many times this photo has been stolen and used without my permission. Decent people would ask first. Upstanding people who care about gun rights would ask first.

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