Gun fights and killing in the 'old West' of the 1880s are mostly the product of movies and popular fiction. Many guns were carried, but seldom used.

One great exception is the Lincoln County War in New Mexico, started when a small group of merchants headed by Murphy and Dolan and their supporters in law enforcement acted to take over the properties of an English rancher. William Bonney was a young cowboy working for Alexander McSween and Tunstall, the former burned out and murdered and the latter killed, by Sheriff Brady and the gang working for the Murphy-Dolan group, in what is called the Battle of Lincoln.

Billy killed very few, and never wantonly, but he did kill Brady, who was instrumental in the killing of McSween, his loved boss and mentor. Billy failed to get a pardon for his part in the fracas from Gov. Lew Wallace, the only one of the Regulators who did not.