The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post - This is Montgomery County, not Dodge City

Byron · April 21, 2000, 11:10 AM

I sent the editor the letter below; I used to live in Maryland (up the road in Howard County), and this kind of stuff really irks me.

Editor:

A letter from William K. Schultz ("This is Montgomery County, not Dodge City") published on 4/19, shows an appalling lack of historical knowledge about the West.

The writer's ideas about crime in Dodge City and similar places are way off the mark. Predatory crimes like robbery, rape, mugging, and burglary were almost unknown in the Old West, and that was largely because almost everyone was armed. Except for young men getting drunk and shooting each other over matters of personal honor (there was plenty of that), it was the Mild West. According to historian W. Eugene Hollon "...the Western frontier was a far more civilized, more peaceful, and safer place than American society is today." In his award-winning book on the cultural context of gun control, David Kopel quotes a study by historian Roger McGrath of the frontier mining towns of Aurora and Bodie, which estimated that the "per capita annual robbery rate was 7 percent of modern New York's. The burglary rate 1 percent. Rape was unknown...If innocent people not living in fear of criminal attack is one index of civilization, Aurora and Bodie were more tranquil, civilized places than most modern American cities... The experience of Aurora and Bodie was repeated throughout the West. One study of five major cattle towns with a reputation for violence -- Abilene, Ellsworth, Wichita, Dodge City, and Caldwell -- found that all together the towns had less than two criminal homicides per year."

Ironically, Schultz is correct in rejecting any equivalence between modern Montgomery County and 19th Century Dodge City. For the average citizen, a modern urban area like Montgomery County is a far more dangerous place.

Whether owning a gun for self defense should be considered an act of silly paranoia, as Schultz seems to believe, or as an act of careful prudence, is an empirical question, not a moral one. Owning a gun may understandably have few attractions for someone who lives far from the D.C. line, in a crime-free gated community patrolled by private police, in a house wired with a state-of-the-art security system. The realities of life in a bad neighborhood may be far from the understanding of people who avoid driving through them. I find it morally repugnant when those who live in better circumstances ridicule the self-defense concerns of fellow citizens who are not so well-situated.

April 21, 2000, 11:10 AM	#7
Byron Senior Member Join Date: December 4, 1999 Location: Sandia Park, NM Posts: 270	I sent the editor the letter below; I used to live in Maryland (up the road in Howard County), and this kind of stuff really irks me. Editor: A letter from William K. Schultz ("This is Montgomery County, not Dodge City") published on 4/19, shows an appalling lack of historical knowledge about the West. The writer's ideas about crime in Dodge City and similar places are way off the mark. Predatory crimes like robbery, rape, mugging, and burglary were almost unknown in the Old West, and that was largely because almost everyone was armed. Except for young men getting drunk and shooting each other over matters of personal honor (there was plenty of that), it was the Mild West. According to historian W. Eugene Hollon "...the Western frontier was a far more civilized, more peaceful, and safer place than American society is today." In his award-winning book on the cultural context of gun control, David Kopel quotes a study by historian Roger McGrath of the frontier mining towns of Aurora and Bodie, which estimated that the "per capita annual robbery rate was 7 percent of modern New York's. The burglary rate 1 percent. Rape was unknown...If innocent people not living in fear of criminal attack is one index of civilization, Aurora and Bodie were more tranquil, civilized places than most modern American cities... The experience of Aurora and Bodie was repeated throughout the West. One study of five major cattle towns with a reputation for violence -- Abilene, Ellsworth, Wichita, Dodge City, and Caldwell -- found that all together the towns had less than two criminal homicides per year." Ironically, Schultz is correct in rejecting any equivalence between modern Montgomery County and 19th Century Dodge City. For the average citizen, a modern urban area like Montgomery County is a far more dangerous place. Whether owning a gun for self defense should be considered an act of silly paranoia, as Schultz seems to believe, or as an act of careful prudence, is an empirical question, not a moral one. Owning a gun may understandably have few attractions for someone who lives far from the D.C. line, in a crime-free gated community patrolled by private police, in a house wired with a state-of-the-art security system. The realities of life in a bad neighborhood may be far from the understanding of people who avoid driving through them. I find it morally repugnant when those who live in better circumstances ridicule the self-defense concerns of fellow citizens who are not so well-situated.