Texas is inching closer toward a law that would allow residents to carry guns openly, where everyone can see them.

The state Senate has approved a bill allowing it, prompting the debate yet again about what the Second Amendment says and what its authors intended. Are all citizens given the right to “keep and bear arms,” or is it referring to the “well-regulated militia” having that right?

Let’s save that one for another day.

But a friend of mine, Benny Hill, reminded me today that Wyatt Earp perhaps was one of the earliest advocates of gun control.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/23/nation/la-na-tombstone-20110123

Good ol’ Marshal Earp used to keep the peace in Tombstone, Ariz. How did he do it? One way was to require everyone entering his town to check their firearms as the proverbial front gate. No guns allowed, said Earp. He just kept ’em locked up until the folks left town.

Would anyone dare consider Earp to be a soft progressive, a flaming left-wing liberal intent on taking everyone’s gun away from them? I doubt it sincerely.

Yes, he had good reason to confiscate temporarily people’s guns. Crime was running rampant in the Old West town. It was worse in Tombstone, apparently, than in most places.

As the Los Angeles Times reported in January 2011: “You could wear your gun into town, but you had to check it at the sheriff’s office or the Grand Hotel, and you couldn’t pick it up again until you were leaving town,” said Bob Boze Bell, executive editor of True West Magazine, which celebrates the Old West. “It was an effort to control the violence.”

Imagine someone trying that tactic today. Imagine as well the reaction from, say, any gun-owner-rights advocacy group — no need name names here — to the notion of surrendering your sidearm while you entered any city in America.

Gun laws were a lot tougher than they are now. And to think so many Americans keep wishing for the good old days.