The frontier was in the DNA of our country for a long time, and to a certain extent still is judging by the number of TV shows about Alaska. The problem is that the rest of the country is well and truly domesticated, so guns are not necessary for the vast majority of the populace to remain safe - gun ownership is now technically a hobby for most of the US population.
And I would disagree that rights can only be won through violence - see Gandhi, Martin Luther King, the women’s suffrage movement, etc. Anything won through violence can be lost through violence. And there are rights other than the right to bear arms - the right to life among them. If one right infringes on another, which one should be honored? Do we accept the deaths of thousands of people each year as fair sacrifice for our right to own weapons?
considering we’re not yet at the point that we don’t elect dangerously insane senile old white men into the highest office in the land, I’d kinda like to hold onto that kind of right, personally.
I find this extremely convenient reasoning, seeing as how the right wing was responsible for electing this ‘dangerously insane senile’ old white man.