""It is simplistic to blame the problems that we have with random mass murders on the availability of guns, if for no other reason than that guns were relatively unregulated for most of our history, and only when shooting started to become a problem were they regulated.""

I'd have said they were as regulated in the 19th Century West as they are now.

When the man who drew first was hanged if he survived, and the man who drew second was given the right of self defence and walked free.

When drawing a gun to shoot unarmed civilians meant being shot dead or hanged for murder.

Apart from the question of capital punishment, what would you say has changed?

Yet, there are very few documented instances of angry men killing large numbers of unarmed total strangers at that time, unless of course, you count the Indians massacred by government troops.

Don T.