It's THAT simple.

Nathan Burdett (John Russell):   If he says it wasn't murder, why do you say it was?

Sheriff John T. Chance (John Wayne): Man gets shot that's got a gun, there's room for reasonable doubt. Man gets shot that hasn't got a gun, what would you call it?



Rio Bravo.
Directed by Howard Hawks.
A John Wayne classic, and one of my all-time favorite films. First time I saw it was on a sweltering summer night at a drive-in theatre.
I was 8 years old.

I learned a few simple-but-important lessons from those old western movies.
Lessons a lot of folks seem to have forgotten.

Shoot an unarmed man, that's murder.
You hang.
Shoot a man in the back, and that's the most cowardly murder there is.
Hanging's too good for you.

When the law is corrupt, people have to take justice into their own hands.
And that will require a gun in those hands, too.
Because the corrupt law won't hesitate to shoot down an unarmed man.
Or shoot a man in the back.
Or a woman.
Or a child.

When that happens, when the "law" breaks the law, when the law murders the innocent, there's only one thing you can do about it.

Get your gun.

And bring a rope.


sj