Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/200

166 individuals who do so will scarcely be considered gentlemen any longer when the fact of their constantly carrying arms becomes known. Why, then, is it done by so many persons belonging to the best society in the South? Is it not really done in constant expectation of some insult, or some dispute, or some collision—in one word, some “difficulty” which may oblige or induce the carrier of the pistol to make use of it by killing somebody? Is not the mere statement of the case sufficient to show that this widespread habit is in itself a severe reflection upon the social condition in which it prevails? Is it not true that the men going constantly armed in anticipation of a quarrel thus carry a temptation to resort to violence with them, and that thus their pistols become the cause of their “difficulties”? Are not there a great many men in the South to-day who would never have got into bloody and disgraceful troubles had they not habitually carried revolvers ready to their hands, and who now devoutly wish they had never done so? Would not Southern society be in a position much more unassailable before the world, and much more satisfactory to itself, if such a habit had never prevailed?

Laws prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons can not become efficient unless they are supported by a strong public opinion and by social custom. As soon as decent people, in sufficient force and concert, speak out on the subject and make their influence felt, so that a man habitually carrying arms must feel himself in danger of being frowned upon by polite society as “not a gentleman,” or rather as a ruffian, those who have any social aspirations will soon abandon the dangerous habit, and the decisive step in the way of that reform will be accomplished; for, public opinion settled, the unruly can then be coerced by the enforcement of the law.

And it will then no longer be difficult to secure the third