If the snake is about to bite you, you'll not be quick enough to shoot it. You probably were fumbling around in its vicinity and you scared it.

Yeah, except your "probably" scenario is full of crap. Have you ever confronted a large rattlesnake in a stock paddock or a dog pen? I have. With the nearest Helpful Snake Catching Wildlife Ranger Guy hours away after a call (during which call, of course, their first advice would be: "Uh, why don't you just shoot it?"). I've encountered deadly snakes in domestic circumstances. I feel absolutely no urge to try to catch it myself, and even less of an urge to wait hours for a Certified Poisonous Snake Wrangler to make the trip out... only to have had the snake get bored and disappear under your front porch, into your firewood pile, or into a crack on the sunny side of your barn's foundation.

Same applies for rabid foxes and other varmits. Or how about the time I came across a 150-pound whitetail deer, caught with its rack tangled in some wild grape vine while jumping a hedgerow? It was in agony, with a broken back. Response time from a Department Of Natural Resources officer on a Sunday morning? "We can have someone out there Monday, would that be OK?" Bang. Animal out of misery. I suppose you would have attempted to put in an IV and administer a sedative so that the animal could hang peacefully from its neck until the next day? You're very thoughtful, I can tell.

The farmer should call the organization responsible for the management of wild-life to get his coyote problem handled.

Ah. Which organization would that be, exactly? Obviously you don't know any farmers. Predatory pest control is not handled by the government. As much as you'd obviously like to raise taxes to pay for more Nanny State services so that a professional government trapper could get hold of the coyotes and move them (where? to some other zip code where they promise to say put and only eat the taxpayer-provided food that you'll arrange for them?), actual, real-life farmers would rather spend $0.35 on a .22 Mag round and quickly put down the animal that's eating his inventory. That's a lot cheaper and more effective than calling a government employee to beg for the services of a contractor who will have to then camp out on the farm to deal with a fleeting, intermittent, difficult to nail down opportunistic scavenger/predator. The farmer is out on his grounds all day, every day. Why do you feel the need to add a taxpayer-funded government layer to the picture? I suspect I know.

The hiker/camper would do well not to shoot a charging bear, because unless you have an elephant gun and kill it in one shot, that bear will go medieval on the hiker/camper's ass

A nice, tidy, fits in your fanny-pack .44 Mag revolver will usually do the job if it comes down to it. And if you're really up against a gigantic Kodiak or Grizzly that's pissed at you, it's a little academic, isn't it? But a starving, scrawny immature bear that sees you across your campsite and gets nuts? Or a typical black bear? One shot, no problem. Running from either of those bears? Disaster. Standing there and singing Kumbaya to it? Roll of the dice. Standing there and singing Kumbaya while also holding a .44 Mag in your hand, just in case? Much better.

Ever been in a rural, bear-populated area where there's a beefy handgun hanging on a hook next to the door so that you'll remember to grab it on your way to the outhouse at night? Didn't think so. But then, sounds like you've never been in such a setting, or had to think about mountain lions, rabid badgers that can tear a chunk out of your leg, or anything else, for that matter.

There seems to be at least a correlation between weapons and violent crime

Yes, there is. The correlation is inverse: when a population is legally allowed to own firearms, violent crime in that area goes down. When a population is deprived of that right, violent crime quickly and permanently goes up. The stats on that reality are abundant, though I can see why you wouldn't want to Google for it, since that might challenge the vaporous underpinnings of your view on the subject.

Guns are inherently uncivilized and breach respect for the individual per definition

What about knives? All they can do is render things... slice one part off of another, puncture holes, etc. Knives are used to kill and main thousands of people every year. In Asia, crazy criminal types frequently use them to kill multiple people (see the recent despondent kitchen worker in Korea ... he wouldn't have been any more effective with a revolver). How about machetes? It's a gardening tool, right? Unless you're a member of MS-13, in which case it's a lethal tool, or used to remove fingers and hands to make a point. Are gardening tools uncivilized and somehow disrespectful?

Ever had a large, dangerous, drug-addled guy beating on your back door in the middle of the night? I have. My wife was terrified. I was none too happy. We called the police. Took them the better part of half an hour to show up. The ONLY thing that got that guy to back off from breaking down our door with the pipe he was carrying was having a gun brandished at him. Even in his unbalanced condition, a low-level bit of his wiring recognized that he was making a mistake, and off he went. He was arrested elsewhere in the neighborhood a bit later... pepper spray and two tazer zaps didn't slow him down, but two police canine officers were able to get hold of him. He had a long list of prior breaking and entering arrests, as well as assaults. Now, who was being uncivilized and disrespectful? Him, as he was looking for a place to break into and someone to rob, or me ... who stopped it with a gun (without firing a shot) while waiting forever for the cops to appear?