Women are given some leeway when it comes to fighting a man. For example, if an untrained female fighter is attacked by a man, no one would fault her for kicking him in the groin. Another man, however, might be castigated for using such a move.
Amy wasn't a trained gunfighter, she hadn't even touched a gun until that moment. As others here have said, Kane is her new husband. She would (and SHOULD) do all that she could to save his life.
The Wild Bill killing reminds me of a remark about it (or maybe it was another man who was shot from behind): since Hickok was supposed to have been shot from behind, people said of the shooter if he shot Hickok from a distance in the front, it was good shooting. If he DID shoot him from the back, it was good judgement.
"There will be blood. Oh, yes, there WILL be blood."-Jigsaw; "Saw II"
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kbarada
10 years ago
Good post Tresix. To add to what you said, this is how I view the situation.
Amy wasn't a trained gunfighter, she hadn't even touched a gun until that moment. As others here have said, Kane is her new husband. She would (and SHOULD) do all that she could to save his life.
Helen Ramirez very forcefully told Amy as the gunfight breaks out that if it were her man she would stay and fight for him. I think this is when she changes her mind about leaving and decides to stay and fight for Kane. After all, she knows that Helen was once Kane's woman and this is the kind of woman that he needs.
Thus Amy gets the gun and helps in any way she can. I find no fault in how she shot the bad guy. She showed courage under fire and stood by her man in the end.
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Tresix
10 years ago
Also reminded me of an episode of "Gunsmoke": in "Milligan", Harry Morgan played a meek man who goes on a posse to catch an infamous bank robber. Morgan's Milligan gets separated from the rest of the posse and finds the bank robber hiding in a cabin. The robber's gun is hanging on the wall when he spots Milligan. The robber runs for his gun and Milligan shoots him in the back, killing him. All of the men back in Dodge gives Milligan a hard time for shooting the robber in the back. However, maybe I'm wrong, but I looked at it like the robber was drawing his gun when Milligan shot him.
"There will be blood. Oh, yes, there WILL be blood."-Jigsaw; "Saw II"
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kbarada
10 years ago
Yep, I would say that when your life is on the line it is either kill or be killed. Why would you give a man a chance to get the gun before you shoot?
It may have been popular in the dime novels about the old west to give your opponent a heads up and wait till he faces you, but in reality it probably hardly ever happened that way.
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Bilwick1
9 years ago
On DEATH VALLEY DAYS, which was supposed to base its shows on actual incidents from frontier history, there was an episode about Sam Houston's son, gun-toting lawyer Temple Houston. (Played later by Jeffey Hunter in a short-lived tv series.) Houston was defending a man accused of murder. The defendant was a farmer or something, not a professional gunslinger; a man with only modest skills (if that) with a six-shooter. The deceased was a bullying, aggressive shootist who told the defendant to be out on the street at high noon, or something like that, for a showdown. The defendant shot him in the back. Houston dramatically demonstrated for the jury how fast and accurate a skilled gunfighter could be by whipping out his own six-guns and shooting out the lights in the courtroom. His point was that standing up to someone that skilled with a six-shooter was tantamount to suicide, so the defendant was perfectly justified in shooting the gunman when he had the chance. The jury acquitted him.
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kbarada
9 years ago
The example that you cite Bilwick from Death Valley Days is exactly what this was all about: An inexperienced (with guns), law abiding woman against a known gunslinger and killer. This was not about honor, it was about surviving revenge and murder by the Miller gang.
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