Return to the Old Wild West: guns, guns, guns

The Gunfight at the O. K. Corral was a gunfight that took place on October 26, 1881 in Tombstone, Arizona Territory of the United States. . . .

The gunfight was part of what later became known as the "Arizona War" . . .[It] has been portrayed in numerous Western films. It has come to symbolize the struggle between legal authority and banditry and rustling in frontier towns of the Old West, where law enforcement was often weak or nonexistent. - [Wikipedia]

Just 130 years ago that was, but it seems like we're in danger of reverting to that kind of shoot-it-out mentality.

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) has said, in response to calls for more gun control, that he wishes there had been one more gun in Tucson on Saturday. "I wish there had been one more gun there that day in the hands of a responsible person, that's all I have to say," Franks said.

There was. Joe Zamudio was coming out of a nearby drug store when the shooting erupted, and he rushed over to help subdue the killer. But he almost made it worse. He was carrying a gun in his pocket, and he almost shot the wrong man. Here is his story:

"I came out of that store, I clicked the safety off, and I was ready," he explained on Fox and Friends. I had my hand on my gun. I had it in my jacket pocket here. And I came around the corner like this." Zamudio demonstrated how his shooting hand was wrapped around the weapon, poised to draw and fire. As he rounded the corner, he saw a man holding a gun. "And that's who I at first thought was the shooter," Zamudio recalled. "I told him to 'Drop it, drop it!' "

But the man with the gun wasn't the shooter. He had wrested the gun away from the shooter. "Had you shot that guy, it would have been a big, fat mess," the interviewer pointed out.

Zamudio agreed. "I was very lucky. Honestly, it was a matter of seconds. Two, maybe three seconds between when I came through the doorway and when I was laying on top of [the real shooter], holding him down. So, I mean, in that short amount of time I made a lot of really big decisions really fast. … I was really lucky."

Lucky? Or just enough wise restraint? He said at first he hesitated to take out his gun for fear of being mistaken as a second gunman in the massacre.

An armed populace, ready to shoot it out, ready to make those quick judgments between who are the good guys and who the bad -- is that a good idea? I don't think so.

Ralph