The next time that someone falls prey to Ravenwood's Law, tell them to quit getting their history lessons from Hollywood and educate them about what really happened in the so-called Wild West.

There were fisticuffs in barroom brawls. When a large group of unattached males had time on their hands, violence could erupt.

However, even in a cattle town like Abilene, Kan., the murder rate was much lower than in most modern American cities. Larry Schweikart, a historian at the University of Dayton, estimates that there were probably fewer than a dozen bank robberies in the entire period from 1859 through 1900 in all the frontier West. Schweikart summarizes: "The record is shockingly clear: There are more bank robberies in modern-day Dayton, Ohio, in a year than there were in the entire Old West in a decade, perhaps in the entire frontier period!"

And if you really want to ruffle their feathers with a reality check, throw this at them:

An interesting conclusion of our study of the West is that today's New West is more conflict-ridden than the Old West. Agencies such as the Forest Service, the National Park Service, and the Bureau of Land Management now control nearly one-third of the land in the United States, most of it in the West.

The benefits from these lands are allocated through political and bureaucratic processes that stifle cooperation. The conflict over resource use far exceeds anything that one saw in the Old West of the 19th century.

If one wants to see the "Wild, Wild West" in action one should turn to congressional hearings, political demonstrations and arguments over recreational and consumptive vs. non-consumptive uses of forest lands.