http://thefederalist.com/2018/04/05/read-understand-rational-support-gun-rights/

"An unaddressed question thus far is, aggression by whom and independence from whom? On the surface there are two answers: criminals who seek plunder, rape, or murder; and the state itself. At essence, however, there is but one answer: the gun provides a last line of resistance against any initiator of force, whether the context be that of simple crime, an ineffective state allowing marauders a wide berth, or the state metastasizing into the gravest threat to personal wellbeing.

For millions of Americans, the right to a gun is the right to live independently, and now a mass movement is threatening to dismantle it. Gun controllers’ ostensible aim is to live in a safe society, but from the perspective of the gun advocate the measures being proposed would make individuals dependent on and at the mercy of the state for safety and thus rob them of the fundamental right to preserve their own lives.

What gun controllers want is safety. What gun owners and gun-rights advocates want is to be at the mercy of no one else. To not be mistaken as a proponent of anarchy, I must stress that I consider the state a vital institution for employing retaliatory force. But the state is not omnipresent. A personal weapon fills the void in emergency situations of defense until the arrival of authorized state force, thus preserving independence while respecting that of others."