When I think back to the days of “the west”, the first thing that comes to mind are homesteaders roaming the vast frontiers establishing settlements for their families while having to defend their property against the ruthless outlaws and cowboys that tried to steal and take advantage of these hard working people. The outlaws would travel on horseback throughout the countryside in search of a town in which they could cause trouble. They would drink early into the morning, getting into fights, and try to get lucky at local saloons with the ladies that often frequented those places.

After a long night of drinking and being rowdy, the cowboys and outlaws would sometimes ride to the outskirts of town in search of farm houses where they could rest their head. However, these outlaws were not your run-of-the-mill, kind and considerate house guests. Even if the houses they came upon didn’t want them to stay at their place, they would just barge in and make themselves at home. Once inside the residence of these hard working farmers, the outlaws would sometimes steal, kill the husbands, rape the wives, and leave the children to fend for themselves. When these savage cowboys had taken what they wanted from a town, they would ride off to the next, in search of more crimes to commit.

During this time period when the settlement of land was getting started, there was often very few law enforcement to keep order, so these outlaws would run rampant knowing that they could hide out in the vast plains of the frontier, away from the law. Homesteaders and citizens of the towns that outlaws often frequented would have to provide safety for themselves and take matters into their own hands to fortify their homes and towns against the gunslingers of the west. Most of the people during this western time period were armed and proficient with guns in order to protect themselves against the cowboys trying to rob and murder them. As a result, many gun fights broke out. When an outlaw would come to town, all the people knew that they were up to no good, so either the sheriff or the town’s protector would try and chase them clear out of town. However most outlaws would never back down from a challenge, and so normally peaceful towns would erupt in gun fire with someone usually being killed or seriously injured, whether it be the sheriff, the outlaw, or even an unlucky innocent bystander

The most memorable fight between lawmen and outlaws, that I can remember, was the Gunfight at the O.K Corral. The fight occurred because Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, the lawmen of Tombstone AZ, wanted the ruthless outlaws Frank McLaury, Billy Clanton and their entourage, out of their town. The gunfight took place at the Harwood’s lumberyard, down the street from the O.K corral on Wednesday, October 26, 1881 at about 3pm. During the legendary fight it is said that about 30 shoots were fired in 30 seconds, with Clanton and McLaury both being killed in the gun battle. This famous gunfight has come to symbolize the struggle between criminals and law enforcement during the settlement of towns in the west where law enforcers often struggled to maintain order and justice.

Not only did these peaceful hard working homesteaders have to deal with outlaws, but they often had encounters with Indians both good and bad. At first these homesteaders were terrified of the Indians, thinking that all they wanted to do was murder and steal from them, but as time went by, they began to realize that most of them were very nice people also trying to support their families. The Indians and homesteaders would often trade pelts, furs, food, animals, and other necessary items needed to survive on the frontier. However not all Indians were looking to fairly trade with the homesteaders, and would sometimes come in war parties to loot and steal from the towns and people that lived in them. As you can see life for these homesteaders was quite tough at times, especially when outlaws and Indians would come and steal the things they worked so hard to achieve, and so it was necessary during that time period to carry some sort of weapon in order to protect yourself and your family. Like the saying goes, “it always better to be caught with a gun than with out one,” and this definitely holds true for the people of the west.

In today’s day and age, with law and order being much more efficient in governing the people and keeping them from becoming disorderly, we still find ourselves in struggles similar to those experienced in the wild western days. Even though the people of today’s time aren’t as unruly as the outlaws from the west, there are still a few ruthless criminals among us. As the times have changed from the Wild West, to 21^st century, so has the word in which we refer to outlaws. Today we now call outlaws, gang members, gangsters, and the mafia. I believe that gang members and outlaws are very similar, because they both commit crimes against hard working citizens in order to better themselves at the expense of others. The only difference between outlaws of the past and today’s gang members is that technology has given criminals more advanced weapons to use against law enforcement.