I can see how there can be a cult of gun-owners who revere them, and see them as a central part of a national tradition. But I find it hard to understand how that could go astray Into defending the ability of people to defile that tradition by how they misuse guns.

So I'd expect to see people who see guns that way to be actively demanding checks on how guns could get into the hands of people liable to misuse them, and on the types of guns they could have. Not just because that would go towards protecting the right to own guns from those who might wish to oppose that, but even more because the misuse of guns was a kind of blasphemy.