Civilization and Westerns

I have watched Westerns all my life. My father really liked them, and so I watched a lot of TV shows and movies about the settling of the western part of the US. Something that strikes me about these old shows is that usually one of the first things the new marshall or new sherrif does when they take office in a "wild" town involves guns. They don't give all the upstanding citizens guns and tell them to defend themselves. They don't go on a "war against crime". They make a law that no one in the town can be carrying a gun. They check the guns at the door, so to speak. The people who don't choose to cooperate are locked up, and their guns taken from them. The lack of guns is what establishes the beginnings of a town where people can walk the streets in peace.

So as our population moved westward, the towns began, and as decent, civilized people moved into them, the guns disappeared. Gunfights were discouraged, the rule of law established, and those who wanted to take the law into their own hands were arrested. I am not talking about having a gun in your own home for self-defense, foolish as I think that may be. I am not talking about England, where the police don't generally carry guns. I am talking about walking around with a six-shooter strapped to your leg or an AK-47 slung across your back. Those are things I expect to see in countries where there is constant warfare, or in the uncivilized west, or in the movies. To see it at Presidential events, at Town Hall Meetings held by Congressmen for their constituents, gives me the impression that there are those in this country who want to return not to the ideals of our founding fathers, but to the reckless behavior of the men who thought to take the west for themselves, with no thought for the civilized settlers who had just as much right to live on those lands. It gives me the impression that there are those in our country who want to return to those wild west days, with no civilization or law enforcement. And that is truly frightening.