My grandmother killed her last rattler in her flowerbed at age 96. She was a tough old farm woman. You never had to read her a script about what to do with a rattler. She killed them all, it was an instinct.
One of my earliest memories is the memory of seeing my mother take a shovel and kill a rattlesnake in the middle of our living room floor. You have to keep your doors closed at all times in southern New Mexico to keep the rattlesnakes and wetbacks out, and, of course, I got blamed for leaving the front door open.