Deep In the Heart of Texas

I always heard that Texas wasn’t a place to go fuckin around at. I remember my first trip there, I was stunned by the signs on the doors of just about any business you went in: “NO GUNS ALLOWED” or this one: “No Concealed Weapons Allowed At All”.

“What the fuck?” I thought to myself. At first I thought it was a joke of some kind. After a while I realized these mofo’s weren’t playing. I remember tapping someone on the shoulder and asking them about the signs. They told me that it was legal to carry a gun in Texas it just couldn’t be concealed. As a matter of fact you can shoot a person in Texas as long as you can prove that it was in self-defense.

Now imagine something like that in New York or California.
“Pow! Pow!”
“Hands up ni----“
“Hey, hey, hey, it was self-defense that asshole stepped on my sneakers!”
“Oh yeah? Tell it to the judge Tupac!”

See couldn’t have that kind of shit anywhere else but Texas.

It all goes way back deep in this countrys history. Back when the English started settling here. And in fact even further than that. When one dude had a beef with another dude they’d settle it with a duel. Yeah for real. Here’s how it would go down.

One guy would write another guy a letter.

“Dear Sir,

You hath offended me and my honor sir. I challenge you to a duel to the death. You may choose whatever weapon of your choice. If you don’t have a weapon I shall be happy to provide one for you. I say we meet at daybreak two mornings from now. Where we will turn our backs to each other and count off twenty paces out loud and then turn and shoot at each other, until one of us is dead.

If you don’t show you will provide further proof that you are of dubious character and will hath offended me more.

May the better man be the victor.

Cheers…

That’s some wild shit ain’t it? You see these guys had ‘gentlemen agreements’ and stuff like that. There was a code these cats went by. So ok, the one dude who was challenged to the duel would respond by letter as well.

“Dear Sir,

I accept your challenge and I am ready to defend my honor sir.

Cheers…

These idiots would meet out in the open with a referee of sorts, it would be someone who made sure these things were carried out in an honorable fashion. So dig it, they’d meet and turn their backs against each other and count off an agreed upon number of steps and then turn, and in some cases would take turns shooting at each other.

After a while guys who were a little less scrupulous did things like instead of taking the agreed upon 20 paces would turn around and shoot after five steps or some shit like that. Me myself, shit, I would set that shit up so that my tenth step was behind a tree or something. Or better yet, when the letter came demanding the duel, I would have acted like it was a bill collector and refused that shit.

“Fuck you” I’d write back.

But as the country moved west things degenerated. The kind of people that moved to settle the west weren’t blue bloods or aristocrats or nothing like that. Nah, these guys didn’t mind going days or weeks or hell months on end without a bath or a shave. They were much more rugged than the guys back East.

So that dueling shit had to change.

Since these guys weren’t abiding by ‘gentlemen agreements’ in the wild, wild west - in came the showdowns. The quicker you were on the draw the more likely you were to live.

So as the wind blew the old dried up tumbleweeds around and the old broken down doors frantically open and shut as people fled the street, two desperadoes would meet in the middle of the dirt road. Neither one of them had bathed in months and you probably smelled a mixture of piss, shit, whiskey and fear from both of them from all the way back in the saloon. They probably chewed so much tobaccee that their teeth were rotted and brown. But it was alright because you were only gonna be smelling one of them after it was all said and done.

Nowadays nobody waits for another person to draw before they shoot, if you can get your shot off first your lucky.

Texas is a real law and order kind of place now. Since the death penalty was re-established some years back, they have executed more people than any other state. They’ve executed some 386 people in ten years. In California, you could’ve gotten sentenced to death row in 1978 and your ass might be up for execution this year.

In Texas there’s no waiting period buddy. There have been times when they have had three executions in one day! Now that’s law and order for your ass.

Now they amended the law to where you no longer have to retreat if someone is attacking you. You can just pull your shit out and shoot. “Boo-Yaa!” that’s right. You can take them out right on the spot if they threaten you on your property, in your car or at work.

Ain’t that some shit.