So this thread...the hunting bit, not the rape bit....sent me on a little voyage of intellectual discovery.
I love American culture(s) and I love exploring the origins of where we get stuff in our culture(s). The hunting this got me thinking "where do we get our (largely) positive attitudes towards it?". the American attitude towards hunting is not one found in the UK, even historically...but it is found elsewhere in Europe, specially the Alps - Southern Germany, Switzerland, Austria.
Then I had my ahhhh-ha! moment. That makes perfect sense. The early English settlers of North America, while not doubt hunting a bit, were by-in-large fixated on commercial farming. We didn't become great hunters until German and Swiss immigrants moved to Penn in the late 17th and early 18th centuries and brought one of history's greatest inventions with them:
the rifle.
That's when our hunting and indeed firearms culture really take off....the English in the North-east and Scotch-Irish in the South soon picked up on the rifle and the hunting culture that came with it. Throw in lots of contact with Native People and you have America's attitudes towards hunting.
So that's why when a Brit hears "hunting" they think this:
and when an American hears 'hunting" they think this: