Easterner here, so I don’t count as a cowboy (though I fancy myself as fitting in well with them). BUT, many farmers in the southeast shouldn’t be left out of the “firearm as a tool” equation. Coyotes kill calves, deer destroy Crops, and livestock occasionally needs to be put down. The term “we used everything but the squeal” (referencing butchering hogs) didn’t come from Wyoming, it came from the Carolinas. My grandpa, dad, and uncles killed many a hog with a .32 revolver held about 6 inches from the base of the skull at the back of the neck. Butchering time was usually right after Christmas. It was so as it was the beginning of the coldest part of the year, and meat could be preserved by salt curing without spoiling unless the winter was unusually warm. We always had crackling biscuits for a couple of months after. Every truck had a rifle behind the seat, usually a bolt action rig in a common caliber like .30-06 that doubled as a hunting rifle. .22s were used a lot to harvest small game growing up. Rabbit and rice was a semi-common Sunday dinner at my grandmothers house. I’m not very old, and I know of these things mostly because my family continued to do them more out of tradition than necessity. When my father grew up in the ‘50s it was more of the latter. Very few people ever walked around with a gun on their hip unless there was a need, like mending a fence through a bog in the summer (snake season).
The main difference in rural East vs West today, having spent my life in the east and and least some time in the west, is Easterners in many areas have forgotten/lost their traditions over the past 50 years due to transplants and urbanization. I hope the “Cowboys” of the West pay attention to us and don’t lose theirs as well.
The main difference in rural East vs West today, having spent my life in the east and and least some time in the west, is Easterners in many areas have forgotten/lost their traditions over the past 50 years due to transplants and urbanization. I hope the “Cowboys” of the West pay attention to us and don’t lose theirs as well.