Because gun rights have been wedded to conservative and libertarian politics for a long time now, the arguments of gun rights activists tend to be couched in terms of personal freedom and personal responsibility. I would argue that activists don't want personal responsibility at all.
If the US had no limitations on gun ownership or use, but took gun owners at their word that they are taking personal responsibility for their actions then the NRA would be absolutely aghast.
I'll illustrate a few examples below the fold.
To begin with, criminal law would strongly discourage the sorts of indiscriminate gun use that folks can get away with now. The huge number of accidents that kill people now are rarely prosecuted as the negligent homicides that they are. Make My Day and Stand Your Ground laws are specifically formulated to allow gun owners to evade responsibility for taking a human life-- perhaps reasonably, but immunity from consequences seems antithetical to the ideal of personal responsibility. Using a gun to harm another person would become a weighty decision as the need to protect one's self or property is balanced against the penalty of a manslaughter charge.
The lack of a background check system would force gun sellers to individually vet their customers. Sure, they could sell or give a gun to anybody but again those pesky consequences kick in. In a nation where bartenders are held responsible for serving already intoxicated patrons and banks (in theory) are on the hook for giving credit to their customers, why should gun sellers have no liability for selling weapons to people that they should've known were going to misuse them? The angst over the idea of a universal background check system misses the point that without the government taking the responsibility for vetting purchasers, individual sellers are left with that task.
Gun manufacturers would be the worst hit as their immunity from lawsuits by people harmed by their products would have to go. If the tobacco, pharmaceutical and asbestos industries are liable for the harm that they cause to the rest of society, gun manufacturers should have to take their licks too.
Embracing personal responsibility would decimate gun culture as it stands in America. The consequences of using a gun in anger would lead any sane gun owner to keep his or her guns carefully locked away. The huge insurance premiums for having a gun in the house would drive gun ownership sharply down. Sellers and manufacturers would either go out of business under the weight of lawsuits or would have to establish a much more invasive background check regime on the order of the credit rating agencies. The right to own a gun would be absolute, but the ability to purchase and keep one would be extremely limited.
Gun rights activists don't seem to realize just how much the framework of gun regulation acts as a scaffolding that shields owners, sellers, and manufacturers from the real consequences of what guns do in our society. Reasonable regulation leaves most people able to own and use most firearms in most places while protecting society from the worst effects. No regulation at all would pit gun rights directly against the larger set of rights held by the rest of society, and gun rights would be severely diminished.