Tam has a most excellent quote from the Textbook of Automatic Pistols, which while spoken directly about the Broomhandle Mauser also reveals a deep insight into the “gun culture” that has been a part of American society since we first pushed in to the frontier.
The American market is a very critical and exacting one, and there is a long tradition behind it which regards a pistol as first and foremost a fighting weapon, which means above all handiness, balance, and the feel of an arm for quick shooting. To-day, in America, as of old, the man who carries the gun, policeman, criminal, or private citizen, carries his life in the chamber, as it were, of that gun; and he must get there first with it if he is to walk the streets again.
Any honest study of American history reveals much the same – a country founded on gunpowder (and a little help from the French) where the firearm, and the handgun especially occupy a special place in our collective history.
Makes me think of a quote from Moribito (just substitute gun for sword):
“The weight of the sword equals the weight of a life. The sword that you hold is symbolic of your life and death, and whenever you draw it, you know that you are entrusting your life to its blade every time.”