[TML] [OT] One for Gun Safty

[Tod Glenn]

> He was my childhood idol.  My other friends were big on Paladin (a  
> pistol
> man).
>
> It seems to have affected me later in life, as I still prefer a  
> rifle (and
> despite a love of bolt actions, I still like a lever gun).


If you look at the American west in the post civil war to 1900 period  
(the classic western frontier) the rifle was by far a more common  
weapon, with the shotgun trumping both in popularity.  Pistoleros  
were usually  troublemakers, whereas a man carrying his rifle or  
shotgun was looked upon about the same way we would view a working  
man carrying a shovel.

Besides, "When a man with a .45 meets a man with a rifle, the man  
with a pistol is a dead man."  Ramon, 'Fist full of dollars'.