History Quiz: American West

[weaselsan]

Originally posted by Nakhui
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[weaselsan]

Here lies Ned Moore
Took two slugs from a 44
No Ned No Moore

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by Fishu
Isn't this interesting, for all the pro-gun people: "mainly because drovers had their guns confiscated at the town limits"  ?

Dodge City had two front streets, one on either side of the tracks.   The city passed an ordinance that guns could not be worn or carried north of the "deadline" which was the railroad tracks. The south side where "anything went" was wide open. In 1876 the population was 1,200 and nineteen businesses were licensed to sell liquor.

[lord dolf vader]

well i cant offer references but the attitude of the not being involved in every killing was commonplace. why would they care? the law was paid by the towns people and really for the towns people the whole authority thing was a joke to most of the "drovers". this was how long after the civil war as i understand it alot of the cowboys were veterans of a brutal war  just out to get drunk and exercise free will and willing to shoot anyone who pissed them off.


the law just didnt see most fights and didnt care to no profit in it.

[Shuckins]

If we accept Deadman's assertion that Dodge City was more violent than New York City, as well as Thrawn's assertion that gun control worked, even in the wild west, then we must accept two diametrically opposed notions.  If the drovers had their guns confiscated at the city limits then why was their "murder rate" so much greater than New York City's?

Bye the bye, the most violent place in the wild west may have been southern Missouri, between Springfield and the Arkansas border.  Returning Civil War veterans formed vigilante groups there to hunt down guerilla bands that had carried out muder, rape, and pillage without mercy against the farms and homesteads of that unfortunate region.  The James and Younger brothers, so often romanticized by pulp fiction, were nothing more than violent thugs who had to flee the area after the "heat" became to intense.

Regards, Shuckins

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by Shuckins
If the drovers had their guns confiscated at the city limits then why was their "murder rate" so much greater than New York City's?

Guns were not confiscated at the edge of town, but at the train track passing through the middle.

Guns were theoretically banned north of the tracks, but the south side was a free fire zone.

[miko2d]

Shuckins: If we accept Deadman's assertion that Dodge City was more violent than New York City, as well as Thrawn's assertion that gun control worked, even in the wild west, then we must accept two diametrically opposed notions.  If the drovers had their guns confiscated at the city limits then why was their "murder rate" so much greater than New York City's?

 I am speculating here that he was comparing the counties or state in general to the New York City - not just the small towns where the murders were concentrated.

 Most death in a city happen in the hospital - not because the hospital is much more deadly place than the surrounding area but because people from the surrounding area come to die there. So averaging the death rate of the city block that contains the hospital would give very skewed pictures of death rates inside and outside that block.

 19 saloons for a town of 1200 resident souls were not serving just the local population.

 miko

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by miko2d
First, the resident population of the Dodge City could have been 2,000 but it does not account for much greater numbers of transients and visitors from the surrounding countryside.

[/B]

And New York City did not enjoy multitudes of transients and visitors from the surrounding areas?  An enormous amount of rail traffic carried visitors to and from New York City during this era.  If you're suggesting that these transients lower the overall murder rate in Dodge City, then I'd agree with you.  However, the ratio between the murder rates of New York City and Dodge City probably remain identical despite this.

Also I bet most of those killed were not result of a violent crime in the usual sense but the belligerent adults picking fights in saloons. The general violent crime (robbery, rape, etc.) was extremely low compared to ours.

[/B]

Again, I'm not sure how much this differs from large urban areas at the time.  I have no evidence to suggest one way or another, and we're just supposing at this point.  I'd guess, but I wouldn't know for sure, that much of the violence in New York City was gang-related during this period and not typically focused at the general population.

Dodge City was supposedely the most violent place in the West and 5 murders was its worst year - while it's average year was 1.5 - 70 per 100,000.

[/B]

Well, my point in comparing Dodge City to New York City, particularly given the article I quoted, was to show that Dodge City was relatively more violent than large urban areas.  If you read that last link I provided, it actually notes that South Carolina throughout the late 1870s and 1880s suffered from 130 murders per 100,000 citizens -- almost double that of Dodge City!  So perhaps Dodge City was the most violent city in the West, but it was most certainly not the most violent place in the Union.

Second, I am not comparing the Dodge City of 1870s with New York City of 1870s.

[/B]

I know, but the point of the comparison was to show how Dodge City might have earned this reputation.  Relatively speaking, Dodge City was more violent than the largest urban center on the East Coast.  I can see how such a reputation might have persisted even if the absolute numbers suggested otherwise.  Nonetheless, the probability of dying by murder in Dodge City was quite a bit higher than in New York City.

I am comparing it with the image Hollywood presents and with today's America where we have millions of people in jail, enourmous numbers of police and full-time law-enforcement, much wealthier society, etc. - and considerable crime rates.
What tax rates did they pay?

[/B]

Hollywood distorts many images into what it believes sells best to the population.  I have no problems with that so long as we always take Hollywood history with a large grain of salt.  

We can compare murder rates between eras however, though obviously society has changed so dramatically since then that any comparisons present problems.  I suppose it's possible to make an index of violence and taxation where we could "score" cities and eras based on the relative levels of taxation and violence.  So if one era was ten times more violent but enjoyed 1/100th the taxation, it would score higher.

I don't have taxation information, but I did look up New York City murder rates for 2001 and 2002.  The city population during that time was just over 17.6 million people.  They are:

New York City (2001 - 646 murders):  3.67 murders per 100,000
New York City (2002 - 575 murders):  3.27 murders per 100,000

Thus modern-day New York City averages near the lower boundary of the 1880-era New York City which probably averaged about twice that many murders per 100,000.  The overall crime rate in New York City in 2002 was 3,100 per 100,000; I have no comparable numbers for 1880, so I have no idea if we could say that it was safer from other crimes back then, though it's important to keep in mind that probably more things constitute crimes nowadays than they did back then.

If you have access to taxation information from the 1880s and today, I'd love to see them.  It wouldn't be hard to make some sort of desirability index based on that info, though it would certainly paint an incomplete picture of life during both eras.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by Fishu
Isn't this interesting, for all the pro-gun people: "mainly because drovers had their guns confiscated at the town limits"  ?

If anything, my analysis contested this point by the author once we look at the murder rates.  Dodge City was a relatively more violent place to live than other, more gun-tolerant places such as New York City.

I don't have numbers related to gun homicides during this period, so it's also very difficult to determine how much of a role guns played in the murder rates.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by Lizking
Robert Dykstra is not a histoian of the West that I recognise; do you have any further references to him?

None that I know of.  That was merely a quote from an Economist article that cited him.  I don't pretend to be an expert on this era; I just like to crunch the numbers.  

-- Todd/Leviathn

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by Shuckins
If the drovers had their guns confiscated at the city limits then why was their "murder rate" so much greater than New York City's?

Perhaps the violence in Dodge City was not gun-related.  There are more ways to kill a man than shooting him.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by miko2d
I am speculating here that he was comparing the counties or state in general to the New York City - not just the small towns where the murders were concentrated.

I was only comparing the murder rate specifically mentioned for Dodge City given the specific population of Dodge City at this time.  With some looking around, it's probably possible to find the average number of murders in the state or area for this era and compare that to New York City or other places.  I have no idea how those numbers would break down comparatively, as I have not seen them.

I only use New York City as a means of comparison since the Economist article seemed to argue that NYC was considered far more violent during this era by some media pundits, but the murder rates seem to suggest otherwise.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[Shuckins]

Dead Man Flying,

Sorry if I was unclear in that statement.  My question was an attempt to point out the contradictory natures of the two premises put forward by you and Thrawn.  His claim that gun control worked in Dodge City to keep down violent crime was spurious at best, especially in light of your statement that Dodge City's rate of violent crime was higher than New York City's.

Regards, Shuckins

[lazs2]

well... from what I have read of the west...  self defense and duels were not considered murder.   Most towns tried to keep the "red light" districts firearm free except for the property owners.   In many towns the cowboys that came in hadn't seen a buck or a woman or a drink or even a town in many months... they were also young and in prime shape.   Shooting up main street was VERY common... the no gun laws were not to prevent murder but to prevent accidents by drunks and property damage...  A plate glass window might cost a months wages and take 6 months to get to the western establishment that had it shot out by a drunken cowboy.

I don't believe drunks (or druggies) should have firearms.  I put drunks in the same mental classification as mental defectives and children.

lazs

[miko2d]

Dead Man Flying: I was only comparing the murder rate specifically mentioned for Dodge City given the specific population of Dodge City at this time.

 I understand. But since specific resident population of Dodge City had very little to do with actual population of that city at any one time, the stats woudl be hugely skewed by the "tourists".
 
I only use New York City as a means of comparison since the Economist article seemed to argue that NYC was considered far more violent during this era by some media pundits, but the murder rates seem to suggest otherwise.

 I think the Economist used people's opinions rather than hard numbers about comparisons.
 Many people did not consider "duels" to be violence - at least not the kind of violence they worried about. On the other hand people consider rapes and robberies violence. The "frontier town" was allegedely a much safer place for a woman to walk unescorted at night than NYC of the same period.

 miko