MIDLAND 101: GUN CARRY LAWS EXISTED IN MIDLAND AS EARLY AS 1885. With an increase in gun violence in recent months, stricter gun control laws have also been an increased topic of debate. Threats to the Second Amendment, real or imagined, do not sit well in many parts of the country. Many Texans, and more specifically, West Texans, bristle at the mere mention of having their guns taken away and their right to bear arms quashed. It is not a recent phenomenon by any stretch, however. Theo Ray, sheriff of Midland in 1885, was likely the first person to ever attempt to retrieve a citizen’s side arm in the newly formed town, although he arguably had sufficient cause, according to the November 17, 1932, edition of the Midland Reporter-Telegram. In 1885, a “reputed bad man from the Big Bend district,” disembarked a train that had just arrived in Midland and began strutting toward a local saloon. The man’s guns, the paper reported, were as prominent as his swagger. Sheriff Ray asked the man to leave his sidearm with the saloonkeeper, and informed him that a law had been passed in Midland prohibiting the wearing of six shooters. The man refused to comply. His obstruction led to his arrest and confinement in the city jail. He was also fined $25. A day later, after the man paid his fine, he returned to the saloon and began to cause a disturbance again. When Ray responded to the call of trouble, the man asked the sheriff to step into a back room of the bar, “to talk things over,” according to the newspaper. A tussle ensued. Ray reached for his gun amid the scrape and shot his adversary in the leg once and perhaps even twice. After surgery to repair his mangled limb, the man was sentenced to the state penitentiary on unrelated charges of cattle theft. Before he was sentenced, he had promised to “get the man who shot him.” It was a threat he was never able to carry out. Timing and access prevented him from further violence on the sheriff before he was jailed. Redemption and the Lord had turned him from his wicked ways by the time he walked out of the jail a free man. He returned to West Texas, passed through Midland and learned Ray had resigned as sheriff and was now the town’s postmaster. The man walked to the post office — this time unarmed and sober — and asked for Ray. “I’m the fellow who said he would kill you before he died,” he said. Ray and the man exchanged smiles and pleasantries. The former sheriff learned that his one-time, would-be killer had found God and become a preacher while in jail. When Ray learned of the man’s turn to the good side, he invited him to his home, where he stayed as a guest for a week. Jimmy Patterson’s book, “A History of Charatcer: The Story of Midland, Texas,” will be completed this year.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 20:18:48 +0000
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