My significant other had never watched High Noon. Thanks to Netflix, I rectified that omission. I hadn’t seen Gary Cooper’s darting eyes in a good forty years.
Watching the Marshal fail to marshal the townspeople to defend themselves against a quartet of outlaws, it all came flooding back. How a good man sometimes has to stand alone. How fine Grace Kelly looked in a skin-tight bodice (not an observation I shared with my SO). How a single shot can make a man fall down dead in an instant.
Wait. What? Yup. Here are three really stupid lessons I learned from watching cowboy movies as a kid . . .
1. Handguns kill instantly
What I learned . . .
Thanks to Saturday matinée westerns on UHF TV, I grew-up believing bad guys died when you shot them. They did so without hesitation, deviation or repetition. One bullet was more than enough to shuffle a bad guy off this mortal coil. I also learned that the good guy never dies from a gunshot wound, although he sometimes seems to. And if a bad guy’s bullet does take out a good guy – usually a supporting player – he’s got more than enough time to say something heroic and stoic first.
Truth be told . . .
With modern medical care and internal combustion-powered hospital transportation, most people who get shot live. No matter what caliber ammo you use, it’s really hard to stop someone in their tracks with a handgun round. Even if you hit the bad guy center mass, perforating his heart or severing a major artery, they’ve got at least 30 seconds to drag your ass into the afterlife with them.
2. Handguns are the ideal weapon for self-defense
What I learned . . .
I watched The Rifleman as a wet-behind-the-ears whipper snapper. No question: Lucas McCain was one lethal mo fo (as we never said back in the day). But the real Western action was always a shootout between the good guy and the bad guy using handguns drawn from holsters. It was all about speed; the fastest gun won. Which made me wonder why bad guys liquored-up before the inevitable shootout (Dutch courage, Dad told me, increasing my perplexity).
Truth be told . . .
After taking SIGSAUER’s Active Shooter class I saw the light: a rifle is a vastly superior firearm to a handgun when it comes to stopping a threat. Yes, well, as today’s Chipotle ninjas may attest, carrying a long gun around as you go about your business can be a bit socially (and politically) awkward. Even so, if you KNOW you’re headed for a gunfight, it pays to have a long gun in hand or at least plan to get to one, STAT. Trunk gun much? Yes. Yes I do.
3. Always fight fair
What I learned . . .
Westerns were all about honor. White hats vs. black hats, or, in the case of High Noon, clean-shaven vs. stubble. A challenge is issued. Tensions boil. The good guy accepts the challenge, reluctantly. The good guy and the bad guy square off for a showdown. Good triumphs over evil. I’m not talking about cowboys vs. Injun movies, where the “challenge” to the brave, virtuous white settlers was [supposedly] inherent. I’m talking about white-on-white, right-makes-might gunfight movies.
Truth be told . . .
Fighting fair is tactical suicide. Watching High Noon, my boyhood naïveté lost in the mists of time, I wondered why Marshal Kane didn’t grab a couple of lever guns off his office wall, position himself on a rooftop and American Sniper the bad guys. We’re talking a quartet of hirsute men stupid enough to walk down main street four abreast. Of course, the bad guys fought dirty; one of them torched the barn to smoke Kane out of his hidey hole. Live and learn, eh?