Guns are equalizers.
Put a person who is small & weak, or in some way phhsically handicapped, in a ring with a 200+lb attacker & what are the odds of the weaker person defending themselves?
Now repeat the scenario, but give the weaker person a gun & an hour or two worth of training. What happens to the odds?
Anyone who genuinely cares about the weak & vulnerable, or about minorities of any sort, must necessarily support private gun ownership. To fail to do so is just irrational & ignorant.
Many of the disarmed countires have higher rates of death per capita from shootings than the US does & if you removed from US stats the cities where people are also legally disarmed, the US would be the safest place on earth.
Every holocaust or democide or massacre of one kind or another is generally preceded by a disarming of the soon to be victims. An unarmed population is one that is destined for either slavery or eradication.
The problem with "compassionate" people is that they tend to prefer ideas that feel nice over things that actually work.