JOHN TIERNEY ON THE MILD, MILD WEST:

It was Hobbes’s prescription for “war of every man against every man,” and he was echoed by newspaper predictions of a “theater of tragic events” in which “brute force will reign triumphant.” But the miners peacefully worked out rules for delineating claims and resolving disputes so well that the system was adopted at later camps like Deadwood.

Roger McGrath, a historian who studied dozens of Western mining camps and towns, found a high rate of homicide in them mainly because it was socially acceptable for young, drunk single men to resolve points of honor by fighting to the death. But other violence wasn’t tolerated, he said.

“It was a rather polite and civil society enforced by armed men,” Dr. McGrath said. “The rate of burglary and robbery was lower than in American cities today. Claim-jumping was rare. Rape was extraordinarily rare – you can argue it wasn’t being reported, but I’ve never seen evidence hinting at that.”

An armed society is a polite society, as Robert Heinlein noted.