The Turner Diaries was a favorite of Timothy McVey and has been picked up by a lot of other cranks. But that isn't the truth about US gun culture, that is just nuts. I very strongly disagree with that nonsense.
You don't understand US gun culture unless you understand that it is antique, and that it is based in rural life; and that due to the history and sheer size of the US, that a lot of the US is rural.
People whose nearest neighbors live far away don't have immediate access to 911 police protection or animal control. They may also live off their land.
Good old boys doing stupid things may trace to remnants of this, and they are stupid, but it doesn't mean that all gun culture (or the antique culture of the "West") is stupid. Look, some cultures don't know how to handle alcohol (or other drug), and some cultures have integrated it so fully that it is relatively safe for them, because they have mechanisms for handling it and specified contexts where it is appropriate. It is the same thing here. Cultures all over the world have different views and ways of dealing with lethal weapons without anyone being crazy. We're not all Londoners or New Yorkers or Vegans, and I don't think that we should be. I think the variety makes the world richer.
That's why I don't think owning firearms makes a person "gun happy" and I don't think that there is no legitimate reason to own firearms. That doesn't mean I think everyone should carry loaded firearms around all the time, or that it's wise to carry them to angry political rallies as a way to intimidate opponents, or that it makes sense to rant about how we should attack the US government, or black people, or anything like that. I can recall feeling a bit repelled by ESR's rhetoric when I read his page. It is just that in my culture we have room for defensive carry and for hunting, and I think my culture has a right to exist. (Probably it's also a bad thing if the only people who are armed are gun-happy barbarians.)
It seems to me misguided to focus obsessively on gun accidents to the exclusion of illegally obtained guns, heart disease or car accidents. But I don't think gun-control advocates are devils and I don't think every man, woman and child needs rocket-propelled grenades or fully automatic rifles to fight the legitimate government with. I just disagree with the few of those people who think that guns should be wholly banned across the US.