I think that is exactly it. I grew up in a small town that I would guess had very few homes without firearms in them, many of them kept loaded for quick use to dispel varmints. High school kids had gun racks with rifles and shotguns in them in their pickup trucks in the school parking lot. There was no law against discharging a firearm within the city limits if a citizen needed to put down a hurt or sick animal or dispel one of those varmints. Pretty much everybody from the age of 10 up knew how to load, aim, shoot, clean the guns.
And in the decade I lived in that town, nobody was shot, injured, or threatened. Crime was almost non existent. Nobody but nobody felt their schools were unsafe in any way. We had total freedom to run and play throughout the neighborhood just so we were within our mothers' voices when the street lights came on.
The difference? Mostly two parent homes, lots of churches and most people attended, adults would discipline any child within earshot if the child needed it. The community mostly shared basic values of being neighborly, thoughtful, courteous, right and wrong.
I would guess those who believed in God were well over 90% of the population and God and religious symbols and festivals, celebrations were allowed everywhere including the schools where no child was made to believe his/her God was unacceptable or not allowed.
If we could return to that kind of society, I'm pretty darn sure incidents of ALL kinds of crimes would drastically drop.
Got it
