The times, they have done changed

The State Fair of Texas is banning firearms, drawing threats of legal action from Republican AG

Tensions over where and how gun owners can carry firearms in public are frequent in Texas, but the standoff with one of the state’s most beloved institutions has moved the fight onto unusual turf. The fair has not backed down since cowboy hat-wearing organizers announced the new policy at a news conference last week.

Legendary lawmen of old supported gun control — perhaps most notably the Earp brothers, Wyatt and Virgil, who enforced the gun laws of Tombstone at a place called the OK Corral. Today, people are allowed to carry a gun without a license or permit on Tombstone streets. Back then, no.

When Dodge City, Kansas formed a municipal government in 1878, the first law passed was one prohibiting the carry of guns in town

In 1840 an Alabama court ruled it was a state's right to regulate where and how a citizen could carry, and that the state constitution's allowance of personal firearms “is not to bear arms upon all occasions and in all places.”

“People were allowed to own guns, and everyone did own guns [in the West], for the most part,” says Adam Winkler, a professor and specialist in American constitutional law at UCLA School of Law. “Having a firearm to protect yourself in the lawless wilderness from wild animals, hostile native tribes, and outlaws was a wise idea. But when you came into town, you had to either check your guns if you were a visitor or keep your guns at home if you were a resident.”

[For more, see Gun Control Is as Old as the Old West.]