One common stereotype of the Wild West that is very much apparent in Mark Twain’s Roughing It, is that all cowboys own a gun and know how to use it. More accurately according to an article on cracked.com the stereo type is that guns were rampant in the Wild West. According to cracked.com this myth which states “Well, even if cowboys didn't have cowboy hats, we sure as hell know they had six-shooters on their hip. Back then, every man, woman, and child came pre-equipped with an old-timey revolver, which was used for everything from personal defense and hunting to celebrating (cracked. com)”. Mark Twain first affirms this stereotype in the first chapter of Roughing It when he says “and they only allowed to take 25 pounds apiece”, so mark twain…show more content… It also shows that people were correct in assuming that guns are rampant in the Wild West and you do not know who is going to be carrying a gun with them and who won’t be. Another reason why these two pieces of text affirm this stereotype is that it shows that while many different people are likely to carry a gun. They are also not the only ones who have guns because according to part of the second piece of textual evidence the secretary had a gun for protection against Indians who I am going to guess also had guns or some other weapons with which they could hurt people if they were to cross each other at night or other times people are in their territory. One last piece of evidence that affirms the myth that guns were rampant in the Wild West is “about two and a half hours before we arrived at Laparelle Station, the keeper in charge of it fired four times at an Indian”(Twain pg.56 ). This is good example because it shows as mark twain and his brother get closer to Nevada that even the keeps of stagecoach stations have guns. This also shows that guns really were rampant just not how rampant in the Wild
