My Mormon friends have explained to me that self-reliance is among the key tenents of the faith (e.g. many Mormon families keep a year's supply of food, as they don't believe in welfare), and self reliance includes self-defense. In the early days, they faced a lot of prejudice and persecution, so it was pretty much a necessity, and some say that they ended up in Utah becasue it was the only place they coud find peace. Even so, The feds had to send troops in a couple times in the late 1800's to put down Mormons 'uprisings', but I don't recall all the details as to what precipitated the gov't intervention. It has been my experience, that as a group, Mormons have strong family values, place a great deal of value on education, and have a strong work ethic, and make good neighbors (some get a little heavy on the proselytizing, though).
