>>211446655
>>211446716
The truth is, as it always is, in the middle. A lot of violence in the West were drunk bandits bushwhacking each other or ambushing someone who didn't expect it, but there were also absolutely instances of actual duels and gun fights were two Men met (usually outside of town) and fought a more or less "fair" duel. Real Western duels were a lot more impromptu and didn't have many rules though, just two guys would head to the outskirts of town and settle their argument.
In actual statistical reality gun violence wasn't that common in the West, including duels or cattle rustlers or whatever. The real violence was in drunken fist fights, knife fights, etc. Basically, the West's reputation as a dangerous place was more from less-lethal drunken fights and the general harshness of life on the frontier than from actual organized criminal violence and gun battles.
Also Eastern cities like Chicago had more people get killed violently in a single fucking year than the entire "Wild West" had in it's whole history. Even when accounting per capita. There was a reason that the West appealed to legions of settlers despite it's violent reputation.
