Well, I can respond to this, as someone who lives in a very rural area in a rural state.
I can’t walk on my own land, because locals regularly climb the fence and walk by the No Trespassing signs to go fishing in my pond and sometimes even hunting in my woods. When caught – even if we’re simply taking a photo of their truck and license plate on the side of the road – they pull a gun. That’s how they keep getting away with it. Because our only options are to carry a gun every time we are taking a hike or fishing, which pretty much guarantees escalation, or present as not a threat and thus have a chance of living through the encounter. Or, as I’ve decided, to simply not use my own land, for safety’s sake.
It’s not one or two people, it’s been quite an assortment over the years. One even seems to have pretended to be a fishing guide and got gullible visitors to pay him (how he explained climbing a fence to break onto the property, I have no idea).
Nearly everyone here carries guns with them everywhere. They all learned as children that it’s normal. They all went hunting with their dads and uncles and cousins when they were growing up. They know that having a gun means they can protect themselves if they sense they’re in danger…so when they commit crimes and get caught, well, that makes them feel that they’re in danger. Plus, it makes suicide much easier to effect without a chance of surviving. That’s another issue in my area, as is domestic abuse of course, which is always more dangerous when there’s a gun in the house.
So, speaking from rural America, I challenge the notion that raising children with deadly firearms is a safe and family-friendly hobby. It has long term consequences for others in the community, as well as within their own families.
It doesn’t make a safe community, and it doesn’t make a lawful community. What it makes is a community where everyone has to operate from fear, and shooting and killing is considered to be expected. That is not the world I want to live in.
