Rural living in the USA is an interesting thing, I wouldn’t say my family was extremely gun friendly. My mother hates them but my father wanted to start hunting again and it was a good way for him and I to bond as there wasn’t many other mutual interests. The vast majority of boys (and some girls) in my grade school through high school all hunted and “owned” several firearms before they were able to drive a car. I knew how to maintain my weapons, hunt, prep, and butcher all kinds of wild game before I was out of high school. It’s just a culture thing. These days I’m a city slicker so it seems like a different world in my past now but it’s certainly where I came from.
And you are right, it is a different thing in a gunfight. But life and death situations make people do extreme things.
Traitors, all of them.