I was raised as a JW, and I also grew up around firearms. My Dad was not a JW, and had been a rifle instructor in WW2. We also lived on a farm. Some of my earliest memories are of my Dad teaching me how to handle a rifle. Needless to say, I was taught some serious respect for these tools. Respect that I passed on to my three sons. And I might add that they like their old man, can also put a round in a fleas butt at two hundred meters. Not to mention put rounds on target at Camp Perry distances. (That's 1000 meters for all the non gun-nuts.)
Some of the finest people I have met in my life loved firearms. They also loved using them for sport, and for food. And most understood the meaning of the 2nd amendment. They understood that an unarmed populace is at the mercy of it's government. For the most part, I have always felt safer around armed people. In my humble opinion large groups of unarmed people are just potential killing fields for the deranged. I remember once telling someone about a large gun show I had went to. I told them there must have been a hundred thousand guns there, and 20 thousand people to look at and buy them. He said "my God, wern't you worried about someone starting to shoot?" I replied that "I had never felt safer. If some nut did decide to open up, the return fire was going to be a bitch." I have been to hundreds of gun shows in my life, and never once did I run into anyone that I would fear turning my back on.
I have legally carried a firearm for more than ten years. During that time I only came close to having to produce my wep just one time. Just the fact that the bad guy KNEW what my hand must have been on when I put it under my coat and next to my right kidney, was enough for him to decide that the pickings must be better somewhere else. (He took his hand that he had just put into HIS coat out very slowly, and took off runing.) In my opinion I have a biblical duty to protect myself and my family. To those that say this might make me bloodguilty, I say that NOT having a firearm could also do that. If I could have had the means to protect my family, but did not do it, and they died, I WOULD be bloodguilty. Not to mention the fact that I could no longer live with myself.
Some people probably should not own firearms. These would be the people that think just having this tool, without being trained to use it is going to make them safe. If you have a firearm, you need to know how to use it, and you need to have decided well in advance that you would use it if you or your family were faced with death or great bodily harm from some bad guy. Personally I shoot thousands of rounds per year in practice and fun, and have attended the Gunsite Firearms Accademy. I take the defense of my family very seriously.
I held these views even when I was a "true believer" of the JW's. On one occasion a brother tried to get me in trouble with the Elders because he told them I had "guns that wern't for hunting." He was told this was none of his business, and that if I wanted to have guns for self-defense that was a conscious matter for me. I believe this is still how the Borg feel. But I'm glad to say I don't care what they think anymore.