Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1517228
THE year is 1881. The place: Tombstone, Arizona. In a dusty vacant lot a few doors down from the OK Corral, two groups of men stand facing each other, at a distance of only around 6 feet. On one side is town marshal Virgil Earp, accompanied by his three brothers – including the much more famous Wyatt – and the newly-deputised Doc Holliday (Tombstone's resident dentist; and, apparently, a noto- rious psychopath to boot). On the other, five members of the so-called 'Cowboys': a rag- tag bunch of horse thieves/cat- tle hustlers, often described as 'the first example of organised crime in US history'. [Though to be fair, this might tell us more about how this incident has since been mythologised, than about the Cowboys them- selves. But I'll save that for an- other article.] In any case, what happened af- ter that brief stand-off has since passed into legend as 'the Gun- fight at the OK Corral': argua- bly, the best-known (and cer- tainly, the most filmed) single incident in the entire history of the Old West. Less than a minute after the first shot was fired, three men lay dead in that vacant Tomb- stone lot: all of them on the same side. The Cowboys were, in a word, utterly 'outgunned'; whereas both Holliday and the Earps emerged from the gun- smoke almost completely un- scathed. The rest, as they say, is history; though it is a history that keeps getting written, and rewritten, all the time. From early movies, which depicted the Earps (especially, Wyatt) as 'fearless upholders of law and order'; to subsequent revisionist Westerns, that have cast the Cowboys in a more fa- vourable light… the jury is ef- fectively still out, when it comes to distinguishing the between 'the good guys' and 'the bad guys' in this particular scenario. Nor does it stop there. The same 'Gunfight at the Ok Cor- ral' also dispels a few of the more widespread misconcep- tions about the 'Old West'. Contrary to the impression you might get from many Westerns – especially, the Spaghetti ones popularised by Sergio Leone – actual, flat-out 'gunfights' were in reality quite rare, at the time. Sure, murders happened – like they still do today – but when you analyse the record- ed, per-capita homicide rates in towns like Tombstone (or Dodge City, for that matter)… you will find that they quite frankly pale to insignificance, compared to the USA's murder statistics today. Indeed, this is what made the Gunfight at the OK Corral itself such an instant sensation, when it happened. In a country where gun-crime was actually quite infrequent, all things consid- ered… 'three men being gunned down, in a single day' would ob- viously make front-page head- lines, across the entire nation. Meanwhile, the same incident was also subject to at least two federal inquiries (thus dispelling another widely-believed West- ern myth: that the law's feder- al arm was 'too short', to reach far-flung towns like Tombstone in the first place). Much more pertinently, however: the Gunfight at the OK Corral also disproves the time-honoured notion – em- bedded into nearly all West- erns: including many about the same incident – that the 'Wild West' was a time where Amer- ica had no form of 'gun control legislation', whatsoever. On the contrary: there WERE, in fact, regulations regarding the ownership, possession and use of firearms, back in 1880s America. And they were en- forced rather strictly, too (iron- ically, the official reason for the Earps even confronting the Cowboys at all, on that fate- ful day, was precisely to 'arrest them for defiance of Tomb- stone's gun-laws'…) All of which inevitably raises a teeny-weenie little question, about the so-called 'Wild West'. How 'wild' was it, really? And it might actually be worth asking, at this stage: given that we so often compare our own country to 'the Wild West', pre- cisely on the basis of its own presumed 'lawlessness' in so many areas. Now: I am well aware, of course, that when we use words like 'Cowboy', to describe the lawless antics of certain Maltese individuals… we're not exact- ly complaining about 'High- Noon'-style shoot-outs, taking place in our own backyard. No: we tend to only ever talk about two main sectors, of Malta's entire 'Wild-Western' landscape: driving, and the con- struction industry. (And per- sonally, I would like to think that's because 'actual, flat-out gunfights' are still quite infre- quent here too, all things con- sidered…) On the rare occasions when they DO happen, however… well, let's just say that we might actually be doing 'the Wild West' an injustice, by drawing comparisons between its han- dling of gun-crime, and our own. Consider, for instance, all the evidence that is now emerging from the ongoing trial of Noel Azzopardi: who stands accused of murdering Eric Borg with a shotgun on New Year's Day. Naturally, I don't mean to im- ply any like-with-like analogy, between these two 'gunfights' (though they do have a few de- tails in common: both incidents took place in broad daylight, in a very public place; and then as now, there appears to have been a brief 'confrontation', before shots were fired…) But I'll put that down to mere coincidence, for now (even be- cause the case itself is ongoing; and Azzopardi himself still has to be 'presumed innocent until proven otherwise', and all that.) Instead, let's focus only on the issue of 'gun-control leg- islation/enforcement'. What does this incident tell us, for in- stance, about how 'easy-or-dif- ficult' it is, for someone like Noel Azzopardi to actually get hold of a licensed firearm in the first place? Let's see now: according to news reports, "Azzopardi is un- derstood to have held a [fire- arm] licence since he was 18" [He's now 39. Do the math]; and "was able to keep it despite receiving psychiatric treatment since 2016, and being under the care of a psychiatrist since then." Much more alarmingly, how- ever, we are also told that: "Po- lice were warned by a psychi- atrist 12 years ago that a man maltatoday | SUNDAY • 10 MARCH 2024 10 OPINION The 'Wild West' was actually quite tame, compared to Malta… Raphael Vassallo The gunfight at the OK Corral took place in Tombstone, Arizona on October 26, 1881