They've been prominent in US history, necessary to put food on the table and defend the family from wild animals and Indians wanting their land back.
This ad by Savage Arms in the Saturday Evening Post, November 1919 would not fly today.
Picture of a Rhinoceros and a rifle. The fine print says...
.250-3000 Savage Rifle, take down model, 22 inch tapered round barrel with integral sight base.
Checked extra full pistol grip and forearm, checked trigger. Corrugated steel shot gun butt plate.
Commercial silver bead front and flat-topped wind-gauge sporting rear sights. Weight about 7 lbs.
 
CHARLES COTTAR'S SURPRISE AT THE .250-3000
 
    Is anything much harder to kill than the rhinoceros? His temper is bad, his skin is inches thick, and he weighs close to a ton. He charges on sight, and he will hunt a man as a terrier does a rat.
    Mr. Cottar has killed a number of charging rhino with his little .250-3000 Savage rifle. He has learned to expect it to kill them.
    But when he killed one that ran away-killed it with one shot-striking in the ham and ranging clear forward through the lungs at 175 yards he was really surprised. He didn't think any rifle could do that. 
    Mr. Cottar has been killing leopard, lion, rhino, hippo and elephant with the 250-3000 Savage for four or five years. He has found it the most generally useful rifle for African hunting.
    It is a six-shot, seven-pound, lever-action take-down repeater, with checked extra-full pistol-grip stock and fore- arm and corrugated steel shot-gun butt-plate and trigger. It has the lines, beauty and feel of an expensive shot-gun. And it shoots a vicious little 87-grain Spitzer point bullet 3000 feet a second, straight enough to make possibles on the 800-yard target and hard enough to penetrate 5/8" boiler-plate or Mr. Cottar's rhino. 
    Look at it and later on buy it at your dealer's, and write us for a detailed description.
 
SAVAGE ARMS CORPORATION, UTICA, N. Y., Sharon, Pa., Detroit, Mich.
Executive and Export Offices 50 Church St., New York City
Manufacturers of Hi-Power and Small Calibre Sporting Rifles, Automatic pistols and Ammunition
 
Instead of charging the Rhino at 175 yards(almost 2 football fields) ran away. Mr Cottar didn’t expect his or any rifle to take a Rhino down when shot from that angle. So he shot it in the ass running away for spite, thinking he would just wound it, make it suffer, for denying him another notch in his whatever.

aside...
I had a 4-H horse club leader who was an engineer at Savage and quit to become the engineering boss at Church Toilet Seats. "The Best Seat In The House".