The differences in attitude towards gun ownership and use probably can't be boiled down to a difference in purely contemporary attitudes towards the government. For a non-partisan, well-informed study of the history of firearms legislation, see Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America by Adam Winkler, a professor of law at UCLA.

http://www.amazon.com/Gunfight-Battle-ov...words=gun+fight

I think this is probably as far as we should go in this direction on this forum. Here I'm just providing a bit of bibliography on some objective historical research, but I can see how quickly the discussion can descend into forbidden territories.