Got it. Though it was pretty common in big parts of The West (as in The Occident) in the first half of the 20th century as well. At least via my understanding of things.

I'd be interested in reading more on that, I really haven't a clue about gun culture of that time.

I can't cite a reference, but many pieces of fiction from the day and historical accounts seem to involve people with ready access to firearms. Google produced this which seems to support what I said above (aka British people seemed to have common access to firearms until ~ WW2 times):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_policy_in_the_United_...