There was a time when the law was spread pretty thin in the west and some would-be desperados, bandits, outlaws, rustlers and those with just plain bad attitudes took full advantage of the situation.

Good god-fearing people trying to do the right things and live in a law abiding way were taken advantage of and suffered at the hands of these no good criminal types until they finally had enough. To fight this lawlessness they banded together and formed a group called Vigilantes or Regulators to take the law into their own hands and protect themselves. These groups or individuals had no real legal standing other than Might makes Right and sometimes were as bad as the criminals they brought their heavy handed justice to.

Usually the Regulators would ride out and capture and administer western justice in the form of a swift hanging, or shooting whoever they thought were scoundrels, on sight. However sometimes the use of a Regulator was perverted and misused by a wealthy rancher hiring a fast gun as a Regulator to protect his holdings. That meant that anybody who even looked cross-eyed at his stock, or crossed his fences, or used water that wasn’t theirs or decided to free graze their herds across his land on the way to market, were fair game and could be and usually were, shot on sight by his Regulator.

Regulators have a mixed reputation with some folks thinking they were a good and necessary organization, used to uphold what little law existed by removing the bad elements as necessary, while others saw them as just as lawless and murderous as the bad men they were regulating. This was especially prevalent thought with the sheepmen and farmers moving in to share the west who often bore the brunt of the Regulators wrath.

Regulators usually only lasted as long as there was no legal law in an area and soon disbanded as real law enforcement moved in. Whether you thought killing somebody was justified or not, you couldn’t just kill them because it felt good. If you did, whether you were a Regulator or not, then you went to jail or were hanged just a like a common criminal. Being a Regulator soon quickly fell out of favor.

Regulators may or may not have been a necessary evil but the men who chose this profession were a hard lot. Quick to dispense their form of justice, they were tough, single-minded men that served a purpose during those lawless times in the old west.