Historically speaking, today is a date that shall live as part of American folklore like no other: It is the 128th anniversary of the most famous gun battle in Old West history.
At approximately 3 p.m. on Oct. 26, 1881, three brothers and a former dentist-turned-gambler strolled down a street in Tombstone, Arizona and confronted two sets of brothers and their friend – all alleged cattle rustlers and thieves – and in the course of 30 seconds etched their marks forever on the American landscape.
The Gunfight at the OK Corral has been portrayed on screen in one form or another (most of them horribly inaccurate from a historic perspective) since the early days of cinema. John Ford got it very wrong in the error-ridden My Darling Clementine while Lawrence Kasdan got it close to right in Wyatt Earp. More people prefer Tombstone with Kurt Russell, most have forgotten Gunfight at the O.K. Corral with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas (1957) and Hour of the Gun with James Garner and Jason Robards (1967), and by now readers are probably wondering why they’re getting a history lesson about that fateful half-minute and its immortalization in cinema.
Because it’s a good lead-in to this:
There is another gunfight brewing, not to be waged face-to-face with a lot of lead in the air, but in two very different arenas: political and legal. Yet these battles will be just as significant and for many just as desperate as the half-minute spent between the warring factions of an Arizona mining camp in an empty lot next to Fly’s Photographic Studio and not even in the O.K. Corral.
As former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr writes today on his blog, there is an international battle over gun rights unfolding in the United Nations, and one in Seattle that has been well-covered in this space. My colleague, David Codrea makes quick mention of it in his column of today here.
International gun prohibitionists have been pushing the United States to sign an arms trade agreement for several years. With Barack Obama in the White House and Hilary Clinton at State, this could happen. Barr’s column is a “must read” for anyone interest in that controversy. He calls it the “Perfect Storm” for the UN gun control agenda.
Meanwhile, yesterday afternoon, gun rights activists gathered at a restaurant in Seatac to set a course of action in response to the Seattle gun ban pushed by out-going Mayor Greg Nickels. That gathering received very prominent coverage on KOMO news broadcasts that included live shots at the restaurant and quick interviews with participants, and it is being discussed at length today on the Internet.
One way or another, these battles are likely to affect gun owners, perhaps in ways we cannot imagine.
Visit with other Gun Rights Examiners:
- David Codrea - National
- Ed Stone – Atlanta, GA
- Paul Valone – Charlotte, NC
- Howard Nemerov – Austin, TX
- Dan Bidstrup – Denver, CO
- Daniel White – Cleveland, OH
- Don Gwinn – Chicago, IL
- Anthony Bouchard - Cheyenne, WY
- Douglas Little - Phoenix, AZ
- Kurt Hofmann – St. Louis, MO
- John Longenecker – Los Angeles, CA
- Ron Bokleman – Boston, MA
- John Pierce - Minneapolis, MN
- Gene German -- Wisconsin
- Mike Stollenwerk – Washington, DC
- Skip Coryell – Grand Rapids, MI
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Comments
We have to do a much better job in informing and re-educting the teleprompter reading TV hairdos that we are NOT gun rights activists... we are Constituional Rights activists.
Dave, thank you very much for writing about our meeting. It was more productive than I had initially hoped it would be, much to my delight. (Sometimes it's great to be proven wrong).
One of the things that we all agreed on is to not do anything that would make things more difficult for SAF. We want to support SAF but feel the need to also do our own form of protest. I can't give away any specifics as of now, but suffice it to say that we think we've hit upon a way to do that without turning public or judicial opinion against us.
Thanks again for the article!
The only thing you got wrong is that the meeting took place at a restaurant in Normandy Park, not Seatac. Dino's is gun friendly and the food is excellent.
Pat, if I may take it one step further, I believe we are Civil Rights Activists standing up for our unalienable right to self-defense as affirmed by our Founding Documents. We are protesting the encroachment and unjustified assault on our Civil Liberties and the definition of a Free Man.
Blacks & Minorities marched in the streets to have THESE RIGHTS acknowledged and unjust laws overturned. Are they really going to let these Civil Rights be repealed in the middle of the night?
Not On My Watch!
"John Ford got it very wrong in the error-ridden My Darling, Clementine" Not completely true. According to John Ford, he had wanted to make this film years before it was actually made. He had interviewed Wyatt Earp prior to his death in 1929 in L.A. and wrote down much of the detail of the actual layout and progression of the fight at the OK corral. Ford claimed to have used these details in the movie. So the fight scene itself was likely accurate.
"It should be noted that, although the characters and setting of the Gunfight at the OK Corral are presented, a great deal of the plot of the film significantly deviates from the actual history. Important plot devices in the film, such as the death of James Earp (who actually died in 1926), the death of Old Man Clanton (who actually died two months before the O.K. Corral confrontation), and personal details about Doc Holliday (who was a dentist, not a surgeon, and actually died years later of tuberculosis), are inaccurately portrayed.
Just a bit O.T., maybe. Without regard to whose depiction of the O.K. Corral affair conformed best to historic truth, I contend that John Ford's "My Darling [no comma] Clementine" was the most entertaining if only because he cast Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp. No matter Fonda's political perspective or the grotesque political views of his daughter, the scene--toward the end as I recall--of Wyatt's dancing with a lady on an elevated floor was about as charming as anything I've ever seen in a movie. His gigantic steps resembled nothing more than a great heron walking in shank-depth water (or my cat trying to walk in 4 inches of snow without getting her feet wet).
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