The OK Corral and Gun Control

“That pro-gun law will turn our streets into the OK Corral,” some anti-Second Amendment advocate will screech whenever anything that isn’t gun control seems like it might pass. They don’t universally say it, of course, but it’s not an uncommon one, especially when you’re talking about things like permitless carry, open carry, or similar measures.

They’re of the belief that if people are allowed to exercise their right to bear arms, particularly without special government approval, then gunfights will be common. The OK Corral is just the only one most of them know. Others will invoke the Wild West in general, but the OK Corral still stands as kind of a beacon of western gunfights.

But, as many of you already know, it didn’t happen due to a lack of gun control, but expressly because of gun control.

“Boys, throw up your hands, I want your guns.” Those words came from the mouth of Tombstone, Arizona’s chief of police, Virgil Earp, an instant before the most famous gunfight of all time erupted in an empty lot near the O.K. Corral. Virgil spoke those words to four “Cowboys” (part of a rustler gang), two Clanton brothers and two McLaury brothers, who’d been making threats for most of the day against the Earp brothers, Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan, and Wyatt’s buddy Doc Holliday. But instead of “putting up their paws,” as Holliday recalled it, “they put up their revolvers and began firing.” Thirty seconds and some thirty shots later, two McLaurys and one Clanton lay dead.

The Cowboys’ threats were one thing, but what caused Virgil to deputize his brothers and Doc Holliday and make that legendary walk to confront the Clantons and McLaurys was Tombstone’s Ordinance No. 9, which prohibited the carrying of “any deadly weapon” within the city limits. The Cowboys were openly flaunting that law, and, in turn, disrespecting Virgil’s office. The chief of police wasn’t going to stand for it. The Cowboys would be disarmed whether they liked it or not. They didn’t like it.

The author of the above piece also notes that most Old West boomtowns had similar measures. 

But the OK Corral went down in history because of that fight. The Clantons and McLaurys carried guns into Tombstone in violation of the law, and when the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday approached, they refused to give them up.

It was gun control that directly led to the gunfight in question.

Now, I get the argument that had the group handed over their firearms, nothing would have happened. That’s certainly true, and there was a lot of tension between the Cowboys and the Earps leading into that. The Cowboys weren’t exactly good guys, despite the fact that “cowboys” as a term became the default, quintessential American hero archetype for decades. Some consider the group to be the first example of organized crime in the United States.

So, of course, they weren’t going to comply with gun control measures in Tombstone. Criminals rarely do.

For the many anti-gunners who invoke the violence of the Old West to combat pro-gun measures, they often ignore the gun control history that was a massive part of the West. They pretend that wasn’t a thing, and that the gunfights that got burned into the American imagination via dime novels, then later in the film industry, were because there weren’t laws to prevent people from carrying guns in so many places.

And, in truth, on the range, there weren’t.

But that’s not where the gunfights we all know about happened, either, now is it?

They invoke the Wild West without understanding any of it, including the role of gun control in the most notorious gunfight in Old West history.

Editor’s Note: President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.

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