It’s also worth noting (though Lemmy is a horrible venue for discourse on the topic) that the prevalence of firearm ownership in the US is itself a function (likely an intended one, by the framers) of 2A.
So many of the measures that could, immediately or eventually, be used either directly or as a legal springboard, to move toward gun restrictions or confiscations see immediate and stiff resistance from the GOP, gun lobby, and most importantly big chunks of the population who are fun owners, who are basically given a personal stake and being incentivized to do so.
So many of the gun control measures being proposed would be dead on arrival due to the dual truths that guns are already widespread in the country and that many such laws would make criminals out of law abiding citizens. This makes it hard or impossible for them to gain any traction whatsoever.
While I agree that the “I need my guns for when the government turns on its people next week” crowd is delusional, I also feel that it’s a chicken/egg situation: part of the reason why that’s an unreasonable threat is because guns are so ubiquitous. The government doesn’t even attempt to go down that rabbit hole partially because it’s such an impossible feat.
I also think that while yes, that doomsday scenario isn’t happening anytime soon, that it certainly could happen, after many decades of gradual change and gradual decline. And while personal gun ownership may not do much good against the government now, in the event that the course of the future took us down that dark route, personal firearms could very well do a private citizen a lot of good then in resisting any opponent, government or otherwise. But of course they wouldn’t be able to get their guns back in that scenario if they allowed them to be taken away beforehand…and prevalence of ownership and political resistance is the best and easiest insurance against all of that.