I'm a little late to the discussion, but I'll just throw this out there:
It's not about personal defense, it's not about shooting as a hobby...it's about the fact that, according to our Constitution, we have the RIGHT to own and carry firearms. And we don't generally give back our rights once we have them, and we don't like people trying to take away those rights. That's really all it boils down to. Some people carry for protection (or because they're cowards, as someone else said), some people own guns for hunting to put food on their table, some people own guns because they like to go to the range and shoot them for fun. All of those gun owners own guns because THEY CAN.
And the fact is, despite what people may want to think, we have so many guns in circulation now, registered and unregistered (you don't have to register rifles and shotguns for example), that the government will NEVER be able to take them away from the citizens. Ever.
So the GOP/NRA/Ultra-Conservative rightwingers are fearmongering to their base, and the Ultra-Liberal/Hippy/Peacenick leftwingers are pandering to theirs, and none of the Politicians on either side actually believe they're going to be able to fundamentally change the Constitution to overrule the 2nd Amendment.
