I don't think there's a connection between the Native American mascot story and this, but the timing does make one wonder.

New Mexico State University's mascot, Pistol Pete, is being disarmed.

University officials have also stripped the word "Pistol" from Pete's name. The new logo shows Pete twirling a lasso. The old Pete toted a pistol.

The changes are part of a marketing plan to remake the university's image on the
national stage. Officials have been working on a redesign of Pistol Pete for months.
Athletics director McKinley Boston said the university plans to unveil the new Pete later this month.

The decision to remove the pistol had more to do with a consensus when picking from several designs of the new logo, rather than any push for the mascot to stop brandishing a weapon, Boston said.

Yup, that McKinley Boston. Of course, they're Aggies and not Cowboys, which makes the lasso a little more strange. The gun has nothing to do with cowboys and Indians, either.

New Mexico State�s mascot, known as Pistol Pete, roams the sidelines at Aggie games. But the name Pistol Pete comes from a real western gunman in the late 1800�s named Frank Eaton. As a child, Eaton�s father was killed by the four Campsey brothers and the two Ferber brothers, all members of the Regulators. By the age of 15, Eaton had become a quickdraw and a marksman, but went to Fort Gibson, a cavalry fort in the northeast part of Indian Territory, to improve his shooting skills. It was at the fort where he gained the nickname Pistol Pete. In a fair gunfight in 1881 in Albuquerque, Pistol Pete killed the last of the six men responsible for his father�s murder.

So it's not historically accurate, but hopefully the new design will help them rope in more sales of sweatshirts.