hugojose

It is a comparison between reality and fiction. What we know of the US old west is mostly a fabrication, first by eastern novelists who had never been to the west and then by Holywood, making cheap entertaining fantasies they could sell. Most western people in the old west were hard working people that simply were way too busy making edn meets to be involved in firefights. Most did not even own guns nor could they afford them. True, there were the ocassional quarrels resolved on the spot, because law enforcement did not reach that far, but we can see that today, even with law enforcement around.

Indians were mostly decimated by deceases brought by Europeans (Indians never had them and had no defences), not by firefights or 'indians wars', and even before the pioneer starting going west, the Indians were finished for the most parts, forced relocations did the rest. There was far more crime and violence in the 'civilized' eastern cities, than in the small communities of the old west.