Actually back then every family had a gun or 3...Mama took hers out to the well and to milk the cow...and was ready to shoot any man who came threatening to take away her long gun...
At one point, I went and did some digging. Looked through some records from the time that were online. People used to group such things in their wills and such as “toolf” and “fuch amount of powder and fhot to be of ufe in daily eventf”...
Used to drive me nuts trying to read the type-set S/F they used to use.
It was a colonial frontier. Being “disarmed” was literally hazardous to your continued longevity...