Wyatt Earp’s Opinion About Gunfighting

[Cloak n' Dagger]

An interesting article I ran across today concerning gunfighting by Wyatt Earp.

“In the days of which I am talking, among men whom I have in mind, when a man went after his guns, he did so with a single, serious purpose. There was no such thing as a bluff; when a gunfighter reached for his fortyfive, every faculty he owned was keyed to shooting as speedily and as accurately as possible, to making his first shot the last of the fight. He just had to think of his gun solely as something with which to kill another before he himself could be killed. The possibility of intimidating an antagonist was remote, although the ‘drop’ was thoroughly respected, and few men in the West would draw against it. I have seen men so fast and so sure of themselves that they did go after their guns while men who intended to kill them had them covered, and what is more win out in the play. They were rare. It is safe to say, for all general purposes, that anything in gunfighting that smacked of show-off or bluff was left to braggarts who were ignorant or careless of their lives."

“There was no man in the Kansas City group who was Wild Bill’s equal with a six-gun. Bill’s correct name, by the way, was James B. Hickok. Legend and the imaginations of certain people have exaggerated the number of men he killed in gunfights and have misrepresented the manner in which he did his killing. At that, they could not very well overdo his skill with pistols.

“Hickok knew all the fancy tricks and was as good as the best at that sort of gunplay, but when he had serious business at hand, a man to get, the acid test of marksmanship, I doubt if he employed them. At least, he told me that he did not. I have seen him in action and I never saw him fan a gun, shoot from the hip, or try to fire two pistols simultaneously. Neither have I ever heard a reliable old-timer tell of any trick-shooting employed by Hickok when fast straight-shooting meant life or death.

Full article HERE

[grodog]

Full article HERE

Nice, makes me want to play some more Boot Hill

Allan.

[Wheggi]

Full article HERE

Nice, makes me want to play some more Boot Hill

Allan.

Same here, and sober this time as well!

- Wheggi

[Kellri]

I once made an entire Old West town out of cardstock mainly to play BH1 Mad Mesa solo. The whole project got entirely out of hand and before long my entire office was overrun by this massive scale model cow town. I think if I were to do it again, I would use some different rules - particularly The Rules With No Name or maybe 2-Hour Wargames' Sixgun Sound.

Same here, and sober this time as well!

Why would you want to play an Old West shootout game sober? I thought those things were mostly intended as drinking games to begin with!