A common refrain one finds in 19th century Wyoming newspapers is the call for “law and order,” including government control over guns. Editorials warned that economic activity would be retarded by the presence of gunplay. Take, for example, this comment from the Lusk Herald, soon after the town was founded:
“There was a lot of promiscuous shooting on Main street this week by irresponsible cowpunchers who came in town and got loaded up on a bad brand of bug juice. To hear the incessant crack of the six-shooter one would be led to believe that Lusk is still a frontier town. Why can’t we have a little law and order here? Of course we know that the shooting is done in sport, but we have gotten tired of putting new window lights in The Herald office just to have them shot out. What we need is a deputy sheriff located here permanently.” Lusk Herald, 1886, quoted in Lusk Herald, May 28, 1936, p. 61.