I would disagree on a minor point. Despite nostalgia and the belief in the manliness of our ancestors, the truth of the matter is that the vast majority of them could not hit the broad side of a barn.
This is not to insult them, but to point out that the American public, today, is vastly more dangerous when armed than were our ancestors. And there are strong reasons.
To begin with, the very reason for the founding of the National Rifle Association in 1871 was the dismay at the lack of marksmanship of soldiers in the Civil War. Yet it remained a small organization for many years.
Marksmanship was not significantly better in the US forces in World War I, the military having lost institutional knowledge when skeletonized between wars.
Only between the wars did the NRA finally start to get some traction in the rest of America. Still slow going well into World War II.
But WWII changed everything. For America became permanently gun conscious, as well as having a flood of veterans from the war joining the NRA, followed by Korean War veterans and a constant stream of veterans from our large, standing army.
The ranks of the NRA swelled, and in the Boy Scouts and the schools, modern American gun culture finally found its footing.
Where before, guns were just props in the movie industry, they were now stars. Not just in the US, where guns became ubiquitous in the movies, but internationally, where much of the world thought America was divided between big city gangsters and frontier cowboys.
Guns became more than tools, they became a symbol of masculinity and Americanism. It was common knowledge, however inaccurate, that Americans loved their guns and were usually armed.
But more than that, the typical gun owner needed to learn gun culture, to know how to use his weapon, if need be.
And gun culture is the key to handling a gun effectively.
Americans are finally learning how to be marksmen. And thus we finally assert the rights given to us by our ancestors. They may have not been able to hit a bullseye, but they understood the importance of needing to.