Ammosexuals

It must be said...

Anyone who fetishes or humanizes their firearms has a mental health issue. Preferring to protect the availability of guns to other gun fetishists over the gun-deaths of children is a very serious mental health problem and a dire societal one.

(Ironically, many ammosexuals objectify women but humanized their little sweetheart, Glock 9... or AR-15 or 'Ol' Betsy' of whatever calibre.) 

Contrary to what the NRA and their ammosexual cultists espouse, America was not always one of enraptured and enthralled by their firearms. There was no 'gun culture' - a particularly loathsome oxymoron.

People didn't have guns back in the late 18th century - too expensive. They had knives and short swords  and sling-shots but not many guns. Unless they were needed - as they were on the Frontier - regular city folks didn't have them. Why lug a gun and ammo around when a short sword or a walking stick would offer personal protection on the mean streets of Boston and Philadelphia. 

That was one of the reasons, perhaps the main reason, for the 2nd Amendment. The US Constitution doesn't provide for an army - the thought of standing armies was repugnant to most of the Founders as being a tool for tyrants. So, to provide for the Common Good, and national defense, they relied on militias. 

Citizen soldiers who needed musketry, some of whom didn't have a firearm or had one in poor condition. The amendment could be read as meaning that the gov't could not infringe upon the arming of the militia - those were tumultuous times.

Guns didn't proliferate in the general populace until after the American Civil War when the citizen soldiers of both armies kept their weapons. Many of whom headed out into the western frontier. Gun design and manufacture made considerable progress because of the war; repeating rifles, revolvers, brass cartridges, breech loading all made firearms more accurate, more reliable and much easier to use.