LETTERS: AS OLD WEST TAMED, GUNS BANNED

To the editor:

The concealed-weapon proposal we're voting on in April is such an outlandish idea that I probably don't need to become agitated about its possible passage.

If gunfighting is such fun, why do I see on the TV news SWAT teams arriving in great numbers to settle high-risk domestic disputes? Why are they wearing helmets and bulletproof vests? Why are the crouched behind cars and trees? I assume it's because they know their work isn't fun and games.

Some proponents sound like little boys who still want to wear toy six-guns and play cowboys. They seem to have a fantasy vision of the Old West. Let me offer a brief history lesson.

When the frontier camps of the Old West organized into bona fide towns with town councils and ordinances and police chiefs and fire departments, the first move they made was to outlaw the carrying of firearms, concealed or in the open. No matter that movies and TV don't portray it that way.

A quick perusal of a neat little history called "Dodge City, Queen of the Cowtowns" by an Oklahoma history professor who dredged up the police-court records will tell you that the most common kind of arrest Assistant Marshal Wyatt Earp and other marshals made in the 1870s was for violation of said ordinance.

Proponents say we need to carry pistols because the criminals do. This is a daily problem in Cape Girardeau and the smaller towns of Southeast Missouri? I read that violent crime is dropping nationwide, even in the so-called inner cities. Proponents might reasonably argue that women have become more vulnerable in our rapidly changing, growing society, but I haven't heard many women demanding the right to carry pistols.

Final argument: Judges and prosecutors need to carry concealed weapons because of threats. Prosecuting attorney Morley Swingle doesn't seem to think so. But even if that argument is valid, pass a law allowing a judge or prosecutor or others in law enforcement who feel threatened to carry a concealed weapons. But not that blasted road hog who just cut me off.

BILL ZELLMER

Cape Girardeau