Tombstone had Gun Laws

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

In the wake of the horrendous shooting in Tucson, AZ, Wild West imagery and cliches have been used to describe both Arizona and an "Arizona state of mind"... This is much the way in Italy, newspaper invariably headline a shooting or especially violent street crime as "Far West in Milano" (or wherever).

Friends at the Autry National Center/Institute for the Study of the American West have passed on the link to an article in Politico by Arizona-born historian Katherine Benton-Cohen noting that even in Tombstone, scene of the iconic (not to mention romanticized and fictionalized) Gunfight at the OK Corral, there were gun laws.

As bloggers and journalists invoke the hoary image of “frontier violence” and “Arizona’s poisonous political rhetoric,” it is not that surprising it took less than a day to mention Arizona’s most infamous bloodshed—and from a local sheriff no less.

The irony of Dupnik’s remark is that Tombstone lawmakers in the 1880s did more to combat gun violence than the Arizona government does today.

For all the talk of the “Wild West,” the policymakers of 1880 Tombstone—and many other Western towns—were ardent supporters of gun control. When people now compare things to the “shootout at the OK Corral,” they mean vigilante violence by gunfire. But this is exactly what the Tombstone town council had been trying to avoid.

In late 1880, as regional violence ratcheted up, Tombstone strengthened its existing ban on concealed weapons to outlaw the carrying of any deadly weapons within the town limits.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47366.html#ixzz1AfOwStur

OWSS in Trevi -- Gunfight at Fort Alamo

OWSS match, Trevi. Photo (c) R. E. Gruber

I spent much of the weekend at a shooting match of the Old West Shooting Society, the Italian branch of the U.S. Single Action Shooting Society (SASS), which I joined last month. (See my post about it.)

This time, the match was held at the shooting range in Trevi, a gorgeous hilltown in Umbria between Assisi and Spoleto. It's an olive-oil zone, and the town sits proudly on a steep slope covered with thousands and thousands of olive trees -- in my area of Umbria most people I know, including myself, finished our harvest last month, but many trees are still loaded around Trevi, and harvesters were out working. This was, in fact, the first good weather for days...

Trevi, amid olives. Photo (c) R. E. Gruber

The Trevi shooting range dates from 1883; it's an indoor facility, located above Trevi in a grove of trees near the town cemetery -- there's lots of green-painted wood, and you stand in a protected area to shoot at targets that are set up in the open.

The weekend match was based on the Cowboy Action Shooting "scenario" called Gunfight at Fort Alamo. Participants, all dressed in cowboy or Old West attire, use a pump-action rifle, two revolvers and a shotgun -- all replicas of 19th century Wild West weapons -- to shoot, in specified sequence, at three sets of targets, set up at various distances. The object is to hit all the targets, in the proper sequence, with the correct weapon, in the shortest time. So it's accuracy plus speed. The sequence is meant to recall (or invent) a situation that supposedly took place during the defense of the Alamo. (To see the full instructions, in Italian, click HERE.)

Trevi, OWSS match. Photo (c) R. E. Gruber

I had been told that the event took place both Saturday and Sunday, so I drove over to Trevi (about 65 km from my house) on Saturday morning, but I only found a couple people there, including Stefano (AKA Marshal Steven Gardiner, his OWSS nickname.)

There were too few people to compete, but again I was able to get a little lesson in shooting -- this time I hit the target with (I think) all my shots, from both the revolver and the rifle.


Today (Sunday) I returned for the match proper -- the other competitors had arrived Saturday afternoon and evening. There were, I guess, 12 or 15 competitors, some of whom I had met last month at the OWSS convention. People had come from as far away as Treviso, in the Veneto region -- 500 km. Except for the wife of one of the contestants, I was the only woman there.


It was fun to watch and to shmooze with some of the guys, but I didn't take part in the match -- I'm not yet at ease enough with the weapons. But I do intend to compete when I feel a bit more confident. Particularly as the level of skill among the contestants was quite varied -- there were a couple of really good, smooth marksmen, but a couple of the others would never have come out of a High Noon shoot-out alive...

Imaginary Wild West is .... SASS-y, in Europe as well as the US

Wild Western hobbyists in Europe bear many affinities to Wild West hobbyists in the United States. Here below is a link to an article from a local newspaper in High Springs, Florida, reporting on an annual meeting of the local chapter of the Single Action Shooting Society (SASS) -- a gun club created to "preserve and promote the sport of Cowboy Action Shooting.™" There are SASS chapters throughout the US -- and also in Europe and Australia! (Click HERE to see the Italian SASS site.)

Its members inhabit "real imaginary" wild western spaces -- the SASS slogan is "The closest you'll get to the old Wild West short of a time machine." Members must dress up in Wild West attire and choose a Wild West alias.

States the SASS web site: "Each participant is required to adopt a shooting alias appropriate to a character or profession of the late 19th century, a Hollywood western star, or an appropriate character from fiction. Their costume is then developed accordingly. Many event participants gain more enjoyment from the costuming aspect of our sport than from the shooting competition, itself. Regardless of a SASS member's individual area of interest, SASS events provide regular opportunities for fellowship and fun with like-minded folks and families."

Playing cowboy (with real guns)

By Valerie Garman
For The Herald

Photo By Valerie Garman The fire from the barrel of a rifle can be seen as this shooter is timed at the Single Action Shooting Society's annual shootout held this past Saturday at the Fort White Gun Club.

Oct. 17, 2008

FORT WHITE -- The Badland Drifter bends his knees deep. He prepares to draw his guns.

He pulls a rifle off a nearby table and fires six shots.

The order is rifle, shotgun, pistol, pistol. Six shots each.

He fires 24 shots in 14.53 seconds. The nearby saloon girls and the rest of the Wild West are amazed by his quickness and accuracy.

His real name is Derek Beirne, but this weekend he is the Badland Drifter. He is 15-years-old.

The Fort White Gun Club disguised itself as the American old west on Saturday for the Single Action Shooting Society’s big annual shootout, attracting more than 100 shooters and spectators.

Cowboys, outlaws, saloon girls and sheriffs roamed the premises, as each contestant dressed in their version of old western attire and came up with an alias for the weekend.


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