I saw the movie, have read the book and love the 1953 version of the movie. I disagree that the scenes you have described are "anti gun". I took the scene with the survivalist to show that often times violence is the only way to assure survival. I did not see it as anti gun. As for the car scene, it said to me, don't go into a hostile environment with a lack of sufficient firepower.
I believe that I am as sensitive to Leftist propoganda as the next and did not find the movie as anti military. The US fighting forces were shown to be doing their job, fighting with great bravery against overwhelming odds. The reason their weapons were no good against the invaders is central to the theme of the book and the 1953 movie.
Leftist Propaganda and Rhetoric
As expected, War of the Worlds contains the typical Hollywood-left obligatory anti-gun scenes, dysfunctional broken family, distasteful "red neck" character (represented as a crazy shotgun-wielding suspected child molester), and out of place, awkwardly inserted anti-President Bush rhetoric with anti-Iraq war statements criticizing military occupation. The movie even starts off with unnecessary labor union rhetoric. Tom Cruise, a dock worker who operates a crane, is confronted by his boss who tells him to come back to work another shift without enough time to sleep. Cruise grins as he tells his boss that would violate the union rules.
<snip>
The anti-gun scenes conveyed the dangerously inaccurate and irresponsible message that you are worse off having a gun than not having one. And that even if you do have one, you will not be able to use it effectively for self-defense, and it will only fall into the wrong hands and be used for criminal purposes. The lack of military battle scenes helps to reinforce the primary theme of the movie, that pacifism is just as effective as fighting against evil with military weapons and personnel.
In one anti-gun scene, Tom Cruise has driven a long distance to escape the aliens, but is stopped by a large impassable mob of people who want a ride or want to steal his car. The mob is banging their fists on the car windows in a threatening manner. Cruise tries to push some of these people out of the way by driving forward. The mob then attacks the car, breaking the windows and trying to pull Cruise and his two children (or was it just his daughter?) out of the car. Cruise stands outside the car, and fires two warning shots into the air with his revolver handgun. The crowd stops attacking him and steps back. But a man with his own handgun steps forward on the left side of Cruise, points his gun at Cruise's head, and orders Cruise to drop his gun. Cruise complies and the man steals Cruise's car. But before the car thief drives off, another man grabs Cruise's revolver from the ground, runs up to the car, and shoots the car thief several times. He gets in the car, pushes the car thief out of the car, and drives off, stealing the car himself.
In another anti-gun scene, Cruise uses an axe rather than an available shotgun to attack the alien war machine's probe tentacle. This scene was constructed in a way to make an axe attack seem more feasible than a shotgun attack.
The political propaganda message here is that guns are evil and of no use to good people. Also, as usual in Hollywood-left movies, firearms are shown in irresponsible and criminal misuse, rather than responsible and safe use which are significantly more common in real life. The last twenty-five years of scientific criminological research has shown that gun control increases violent crime, costing thousands of lives each year, and endangering everyone including those who choose not to own firearms. Defense with a firearm is significantly safer and more effective than any other method. And firearms are used at least five times more often for self defense than they are misused in all crimes, suicides, and accidents combined, usually without having to shoot the attacker. Mere possession and display of a firearm is almost always an adequate defense. Yet the Hollywood-left wants everyone to believe the opposite.