Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-05-05
THE PISTOL NUISANCE.
Stimulating Uncivilized Methods Whe
They Shauld he Excluded


EDS. REcoRD-UNIoN Under the sensa-
tional title of How to pack gun" last
Sundays Examiner devotes two columns
and half of its space to the evolution of
pistol pockets, and hints that the art of
carrying pistol properly and discharging
it promptly is one which no polished
American can afford to despise. The arti-
Gle is illustrated by cheap cuts, and rs of
highly sensational character, the writer of
II being at no pains TO veil his moral, which
is that to conceal firearms on their persons
and to draw these on the fiimsiest provo
cation arising is demanded of all true and
law-abiding citizens.
Happily for California's reputation for
refinement and good taste, there is a section
OF the community to whom the conclusions
limited at in this article will seem offensive
and understandable, and of piece with the
brazen effrontery of those who are wicked
enough to publish them. No wonder our
civilization is the subject of satire and ridi-
Guile, when Pacific coast customs are so
lied about and misrepresented as they are
in the EXAMINER article of last Sunday.
In that article, openly, or by implication,
urban Californians are represented as a
race of beings to whom revolyers are more
indispensable than umbrellas. Unfortun-
ately SANDER of this sort does not carry a
conviction OF talsity on its face, and there
are many credulous people in the East
and elsewhere, who, reading the Examiners
article will find in it confirmation of the
widest fictions which have ever been cir
culated TO our discredit. However, while
the article referred to is calculated to do us
infinite mischief, from the misrepresenta-
tons it contains of our social customs, Sem
ator Hearst's organ is not the only one
which panderS TO the morbid desire for
firearms exhibited by certain section of
the community.
A custom has been inaugurated by GER
tain journals of Offering "pistol premi-
ums" as inducements to subscribe, thus
ministerirg to an appetite which is IN no
danger of losing its edge, even when there
is no directly melting cause to sharpen it.
" Arma virumque" is the refrain which
sounds alike through the Examiner article,
and advertisements of journals of the class
| have mentioned, who apparently are of
the opinion that the revolver is the appro-
pirate complement to the newspaper. The
wholesale diffusion of weapons throughout
this State is an evil to be deplored-equally
as much as gambling or drunkenness. 1t
implies low estimate of the sanctity of
human life, the presence or absence of
which sentiment IN community is an I'M
erring test of the degree of refinement that
community has attained to.
Moreover, the surreptitious wearing of
arms argues mutual distrust of one an
other, and is an insult to the laws and in
stitutions We live under. What is there in
the present condition of human rela-
tons on this coast to justify a return to
frontier usages? 1t is vain to urge the
plea Of defense TO property, for even if
every third man one met was o burglar,
this universal arming OF society against
society is insufficient to account for the
phenomena l am considering. 1t is no
imitation of the customs of the East, still
less those Of England, where nobody packs
pistols save Welshers and race-course
ruffians. For one man who goes armed
in the streets of London, there are a hun
dred who carry concealed weapons in the
streets of San Francisco, and there are some
who would deduce from these figures a
standard of the respective civilizations OBJ
tanning in each city.
The wholesale carrying of weapons can
only be justified by a state of things which
renders the precaution necessary one,
and if this need does not exist. the former
as practice is indefensible and barbarous
Shakespeare remark about " the night of
lncdNS ~ uo III dSctiSi WAS never ulOIc
forcibly illustrated than in the case of the
pistol. The latter is most unhappy in
stance of what students of manners call "a
survival in barbarism," and is a nuisance
which must disappear before the dawn of
a brighter culture. For the sake of public
morals it is to be hoped that the Examiner
man may rest content with the mischief
his sensational article has already dissent
mated, and postpone indefinitely his threat
contained in its closing words. CRITIC.
Folsom, May 3, 1888.