Before Robert Spitzer grew up to be an expert on American gun policy, he watched a lot

of westerns. He was raised on cowboy movies and cowboy TV shows and gunslinging and all

of the rest. We'd all be much better off if there wasn't a single gun left in this

valley. A gun is as good or bad as a man using it.

He was raised on stories of an America built by rugged men with six shooters on their

hips. Even though that image was mostly made up, Gary Cooper was a great actor and

high-noon, great, great movie, but you know, was that typical of the West? Well, no.

Robert has written five books about gun policy in the U.S. and he says that in the actual

Wild West, gun laws were strict. They didn't want people walking around their new town

with a gun strap to their hip. So if you came to town, you'd have to check your gun at

the town hall or the sheriff's office or the clerk's office or someplace.

So all of those western movies and television shows have been both getting in gun fights

and that's largely fiction. You know, I'm still drawn into those old stories, but that

was not typical at all.

Unfortunately, mass shootings have become all too typical. Recent tragedies like the Covenant

School Shooting in Tennessee, two separate shootings in Louisville, Kentucky and the shooting

at a birthday party in Deidville, Alabama have prompted fresh calls for gun reform, though

it's unclear how much will come of them.

But America's gun policy history seems to be more important to many courts than the present.

Last summer, the Supreme Court struck down a New York State concealed carry law because

in the view of the Court's majority, it went against the original intent of the Second

Amendment. That ruling set a precedent that all gun laws should be judged against, quote,

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