128 years ago a small event in the great scheme of things happened. This event launched several movies, books, cowboy action shooting "handles," and saved a town from extinction. Yes, today is the anniversary of the "Gunfight at the OK Corral."
If you look at the actual fight, there is little that should resonate so many years later, but it does. Yosemite Sam and I were in Tombstone, Arizona in May. We'd like to go again not because of something that is linked to Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, the Clantons, or any of the other bigger than life figures that roamed the town's streets. We liked it because it felt like America.
We are a nation that values our wild west heritage, even if it didn't happen exactly like we think it did. The values of self-defense, independence, gun ownership (and yes I know that the Earps wanted to disarm the Clantons and their relatives while they were in town) are important and being lost. Still, long may that heritage last.
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