In a word, yes. I an very careful what neighborhoods I walk in in Philadelphia. I don't walk after dark, but I never did in Asheville either. What I am referring to is living in Waynesville, 30 miles West of Asheville, a small town, not feeling safe in grocery stores where visibly angry armed red necks were glaring at everyone as they shopped for groceries. The rural and small towns in the Mountains have a long history of being rebels. When Mom and Dad moved to Asheville in the 1980's, they were warned not to go to Madison County, "Bloody Madison" as they would be shot at as being "Revenurers." In exploring back roads outside Waynesville alone, I would feel I was in the film Deliverance. There are small remote communities like Sodom Laurel in Madison Co, where it was historically so isolated there was a fair amount of incest! I remember another remote community where the folks there all had these narrow "possum" faces. I tell you, it is another world. 

And EVERYONE has a shotgun! BTW,  Deliverance was filmed near where I lived. I met this really sweet man that had a booth at Uncle Bill's Flea Market. He was telling me how much he missed his late wife, while petting his pet squirrel. I noticed an old poster of the Deliverance. He was in that poster, the guy with no teeth that was chasing Bert Reynolds and buddies. Cowboy Coward was a local star. I would see him at the grocery store, in a wheel chair, with his pet squirrel! Sadly he was killed in a car crash last year.

Much of the Mountain Southern Appalachian culture goes back hundreds of years. I owned a women's fitness center. I was reading Cold Mountain and began to ask how many of these women were related to the main character? About half of them had In man's in their family tree. The locals go back at least 150 years or more. I really loved those women, but they would only let you get but so close. 

https://avlwatchdog.org/41929-2/