I've often read that a very important reason so many americans advocate owning guns is that they distrust/fear their own government, and so consider guns as a kind of defense against a potentially hostile government.
I think that reasoning is flawed (as Chomsky once said in an interview "If people have pistols, the government has tanks. If people get tanks, the government has atomic weapons. There's no way to deal with these issues by violent force, even if you think that that's morally legitimate."), but even if it wasn't:
Isn't that rather contradictory with the concept of "law-abiding citizen", that mystical gun-owning superhero who always turns up whenever there is a gun control discussion?
The main characteristic of law-abiding citizen is that he is "law-abiding" - in other words: he always strictly and blindly follows the rules dictated by this very government, as stupid as they might be. If such a person turns against his government, not only is he now longer law-abiding, but probably in a rather dangerous state of mind as well.
In my opinion, advocating "law-abiding citizen" and at the same time feeling a need to defend yourself against the government that makes those laws is kind of schizophrenic. I think the driving force for such a person to follow the laws is fear.
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