Having lived in a number of southern states, Florida, Texas & Louisiana...as well as other places, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, California, Illinois, one noticeable difference between Florida and Michigan is the law governing hunting...what can and cannot be done. In Florida, for instance, they hunt with dogs, probably because Florida looks like a jungle for the better part of the year, whereas in Michigan we have a fall and the woods are open with the leaves falling from the trees. Even so, I almost stepped on a deer one season so it doesn't take much imagination to realize one could walk through the "bush" in Florida and pass within feet of all manner of critters and never know they are there.
Too...in Florida, many of the trucks had gun racks behind and above the back of the seat and a hunter can place his shotgun in the rack, get in, and drive to a place where he can set up, stand, and wait for the hounds to drive a deer across an opening on the road, most often dirt. In Michigan, one must unload the rifle in the U.P., a shotgun like in Florida, in the L.P., put it in a case that is completely closed and fastened, before one can turn the key. I remember a time when my first employer in Florida brought a...22-rifle I think it was...to work...to sell or so a co-worker could look at with the possibility of buying it. I don't recall if the gun was in a case...but since the boss had the proverbial gun-rack in the truck (he also had about 30 hounds at one time...and was a real grouch deer season, if he couldn't hunt instead of work)...I'm probably not off-base to say he simply placed the gun in the rack and drove to work with it...in full-view of all. He shot a robin with it...work site was out in the country...building a house for a man had Cherokee blood, as the song goes...and also had a collection, small, of guns, one an old revolver that showed noticeable wear on the barrel...evidence perhaps that it had been used repeatedly, the shooter drawing it from a leather holster. There were no notches in the grip. (I told the boss that the robin is Michigan's state bird...probably should have kept my yap shut.)
In Florida during most of the 80s when I was there, there were more than a few "western-theme" bars...Whiskey River was one...where many patrons male and female wore straw cowboy hats, cowboy boots, belts with large buckles...and in Texas early 80s, just after "Urban Cowboy" was on the silver screen, we went to Gilley's in Houston (or Pasadena?) where a portion of that film was made...rode the mechanical bull, did the Texas Two-Step with possibly a hundred or more others many in hats and boots and kicking under the influence of beer and whiskey. I think Earnest Tubb was playing there at the time, too. Or was it Ernie Ford?
Raylan Givens wears a specific kind of cowboy hat in Leonard's stories...Dallas Businessman's or something like that...not a straw hat as many wear.
Guns are common everywhere. The other morning I stepped outside here in the small village where I live and I could hear gunshots over across the way maybe a mile distant...I assume someone plinking at paper...sounded like a small caliber gun. It it not uncommon to hear gunshots at any time of the year, more so prior to the start of deer rifle season and then throughout that season into December, the tone of the gunshots changing from high-caliber rifle to a deeper more resonant-sounding muzzle-loader in December. Then too, I've been in a tree Oct-Dec of the year and have heard someone cut loose with what sounds like a semi-auto AK knock-off, even at a distance you can hear the metallic cycling of the gun. I pick up brass at several locations throughout the year, brass discarded by other shooters, brass that can be reloaded (which I do) or turned in for money. Some bullets cost as much as a dollar a round, so discarded brass is fine by me...I'll take it...most of it if not all has only been fired once...some, with a different primer, usually steel, I discard
Elmore Leonard, the creator of the Raylan Givens character, is a favorite writer of mine...I've read 40+ of his stories and they are all well-worth a read.
Oh, Geeze.......