There doesn't seem to be anything particularly controversial or provocative about your post. It seems quite reasonable and well thought out to me.

In my opinion, the "gun culture" came about for a number of reasons,

0) For historical reasons (Indian attacks, slave rebellions, lawlessness on a sparsely populated frontier), guns have always been common in rural America, also mostly as farm tools in wilderness areas, and Americans living in those areas were relatively more prosperous than their overseas counterparts. They could afford them.

1) Due to mass production, guns eventually became cheaper, relative to the purchasing power of the average consumer, and easier to operate.

2) The use of guns in street crime became much more prevalent, especially in the urban drug trade. This not only increased the demand for firearms among criminals, but also among people who felt threatened by criminals. This especially became the case when the poor started arming themselves.

3) The increased use of guns by both criminals and ordinary citizens led to a gun industry developing. There used to be just a few popular firearms for the sport and self-defense markets, but now we had an industry, both domestic manufacturers and importers, and an expanding market interested in promoting exotic self-defense weapons (new calibers, novel designs, etc) as well as paramilitary type weapons suitable for combat use. Guns last a long time if taken care of, keeping sales booming requires marketing. If you don't believe this, go to your local newsstand and see how many shooting-related magazines there are.

4) A gun industry meant competition and new products, plus industry associations promoting gun-friendly laws and organizing against any form of gun control and regulation.

5) With manufacturers trying to sell more guns, trade groups lobbying on their behalf, paranoid citizens terrified of the increase in weapons, paranoid gun owners terrified that someone was going to take their guns away, a self-perpetuating spiral of gun hysteria took off. It started feeding on itself.

6) Eventually, this positive feedback loop became politicized, with particular feelings about gun use and ownership becoming associated with particular ideological positions. Some people felt that guns could be simply outlawed, and the problem would just go away. That is nonsense, of course. They would still smuggle them into the country inside bales of marijuana. Besides, there are already probably more guns in the country than there are people, and firearms are a very durable piece of hardware.

Other people somehow managed to convince themselves that ownership of firearms would somehow prevent a tyrannical government from taking over. That is also ludicrous. In Saddam's Iraq, everybody owned a gun, And contrary to most right wing propaganda, the first thing Communist governments do is get everybody into the state militia, and issue them not only a gun, but military training. People need a reason to justify purchases of not only a sporting or self-defense weapon, but multiple assault rifles, advanced sidearms, and other diverse combat accessories. Its the same psychosis that drives preppers, survivalists, militias, and people who are gearing up for the Zombies Apocalypse. (Do you think I'm kidding? Google "Zombie Apocalypse Survival Gear". There's a whole industry of specialized weaponry already available.) No, when people want an excuse to do something really stupid, they can be quite creative.

So to answer your question, what can be done to put a stop to this nonsense? Probably not much, except passing a few common sense laws limiting the distribution and types of weapons, to try and control the damage as much as possible. For starters, I would make it illegal for people to carry or keep firearms outside their property, except for authorized use at gun ranges, hunting parks or transport to a gunsmith's. Other than that, we're just going to have to wait until the crazyness works itself out.