I grew up in (very) rural north Louisiana, with my mom and grandparents. Firearms were, and are, a part of life in Lincoln Parish. Until I was a teenager, I didn't even know there was such a thing as an anti-gunner. You'd may as well talk about being anti-walking! By the age of six, I had my own .22 and .410 singleshot, and was hunting alongside my grandfather, uncles, and cousins. By about ten, I was hunting alone, for deer and everything else.
Guns were for hunting and protection. I didn't live in an incorporated town, so there were no police. The Sheriff could conceivably come, but it would be hours. You protected yourself. As a teenager, my mom successfully used her .38 (which she still keeps on the nightstand) to fend off intruders from our land. In the eighteen years I lived there, I never once laid eyes on a game warden, but no one poached---or even hunted on Sundays!
Now, as an adult, I live in a decent sized city in east Tennessee. It's amazing the different attitudes here. I'm trying to instill in my daughter some of the same attitudes about self reliance and conservation that were taught to me.