"Here, y'all; right out of the horse's mouth, an eye witness account of the cowboys and their gear, with revolvers, on Theodore Rooseveldt's ranch in the early 1880's; just read pages 10-12 to stay on topic: https://archive.org/details/huntingtripsranch04roosrich"
Once again, NO ONE in this thread is saying that cowboys NEVER carried handguns!
It is obvious that they did.
What IS being said, however, is that that the vision many of us have of cowboys as being armed no matter what they were doing -- riding, roping, eating, sleeping, drinking, screwing or -CENSORED--CENSORED--CENSORED--CENSORED-ting -- IS A MYTH.
For God's sake, it is NOT a black/white, yes/no, on/off, 1/0 issue.