Your point is a good one. Before there were guns, there were other tools, like swords, that were used as weapons. Before any types of weapons were invented, and as is true in the animal kingdom, the biological strength of the individual organism determined who was in charge and who was vulnerable. In American society today, as in any human society, there is an imbalance in protective abilities among individuals. Firearms can help protect the weak and vulnerable from the strong and immoral.
In Rwanda, the machete was a popular weapon for mass killings in the most recent civil war. It never runs out of ammunition.
IOW, God created Man, Samuel Colt made them equal.