Customer Reviews

Concealed Weapon Laws of the Early Republic: Dueling, Southern Violence, and Moral Reform

Clayton Cramer's excellent book gives us an example of how there are exceptions to every rule. His excellent scholarship gives us an in depth feel for the culture that produced Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Sam Houston, and Jack Hays. The Scotch-Irish culture of the early frontier was one that Cramer calls the "honor culture". Those frontier guys fought at the drop of the hat (or more precisely, at the drop of a perceived insult). As Don Higginbotham tells us, in his excellent biography about another product of frontier culture ("Daniel Morgan: Revolutionary Rifleman"), sometimes they fought just for the fun of it.

Cramer gives us the granular details from original sources that supports his thesis that the goal of early southern and western reformers was to stop the fighting and the dueling.

He shows how concealed carry laws were a natural progression of government intervention after dueling was eliminated. The idea behind the legislation was that after dueling was banned, guys started fighting immediately after the perceived insult, instead of waiting for the duel. And, if the weapons of the opponent were concealed, the theory went, they were more likely to fight.

I am not sure that the laws that passed were ever needed. Certainly, if Cramer is right, the original rationale for the earliest concealed carry laws has long evaporated. It is attitudes and values that change cultures, not laws. Usually, the attitudes change first, thereby creating the law after it is not needed.

If you want to take a new look at the frontier culture of the early 1800's and understand how different it was then from now. If you want to understand a portion of the history of gun control in this country. Or, if you just want to read well researched and well presented historical scholarship, you should read this book.