Well, my uncle loved guns and used them all his life. He never once shot at a human being or had any wish to. He was a model citizen. I loved guns when I was a kid and a young adult. I never once shot at a human being or had any wish to. (I shot at targets, tin cans, toy soldiers, and a few bugs, mostly locusts...because they were very hard to sneak up on and get a clear shot at before they would fly off.) There are many, many people who are completely responsible and nonviolent gunowners. They should not be demonized or penalized due to public hysteria. Country people traditionally tended to have guns for a variety of reasons, some of them quite practical, and that is still the case in rural areas that border on wilderness. You can't just judge people on the basis of stereotypes, you have to look at each situation on its own merits.

I never thought much about the gun as a self-defence weapon, I thought about it as I would think about archery, ping-pong, or flying a kite...meaning, I found target shooting and the gun itself interesting simply for its own sake, because of how it functioned and the skill or finesse demanded in using it accurately. I didn't see the gun as a way of empowering myself in regards to other people.