Page 114 - The Lost Ways

The same goes for lynchings. If you’re the one who maintained the law—even
unofficially—and a criminal was lynched, you’re going to be held responsible for it. When
raiders arrive, aim to drive them off. If any get shot in the process, that’s legitimate self-
defense, but frontier justice is a different story.

Law enforcement in the Old West was all about the community looking after itself. It was
based on consent and on power exercised by a sheriff chosen from among the people.
That’s the way the law should be maintained, and many of today’s social problems trace
back to the fact that it isn’t done that way anymore. After the SHTF, it’s going to be
different. Surviving communities will have to return to the ways of the Western pioneers
because there will be no other way to maintain law and order.

If those communities don’t adopt the Western way of keeping the peace, then they won’t
last. However strong and self-reliant they are, they’ll inevitably be overwhelmed, one
house at a time, by those who emerge from the wreckage all around them.

The traditions of the sheriff, America’s iconic lawman, were essential to building this
country. They’ll be just as essential to rebuilding it after a collapse.

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