You seem to mistake grants of privilege for rights, when you say:

"...guns were not needed to gain many of the rights that were not inherent originally..."

Guns never gained us any rights whatsoever, either.

We were born with rights, and nothing will take our rights away.

Our rights can be recognized by others, and the private arms in the hands of the American revolutionaries convinced the crown to recognize our rights.

Our rights can be trampled by others, and that is why the aforementioned private arms came into play - and this is exactly what @finnian is going on about.

The wars which the US has lost in the last century were all waged against guerillas using small arms. The US military would be hopelessly fractured if they tried to repress US people as they have in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan, and those that set the military on Americans would hang, in time.

The answer to give those people that have lost loved ones is hard, but the truth can be, and always is when the only reality is grief: they should have been armed, and trained to defend themselves.

You seem reasonable. You should be armed, and trained, to defend yourself, your loved ones, and our freedom.

Or, you can just settle for what you get.

Even if it's a bullet in the head from some whacko.