Double Naught, you're correct about the emotional nature of most of the arguments, both pro and con. But I think we need to think about this a bit more specifically, and to make some distinctions about who's doing the arguing, what's being argued, and to whom the arguments are directed.
Who: To name the obvious ones: gun owners who feel strongly about protecting their rights; gun control advocates who want to limit or eliminate legal gun ownership on the grounds that society will somehow be "safer" if this is done; non gun owners who don't know much about guns and find them sort of scary; and
third parties who have a vested interest in making sure this issue remains as divisive, as polarizing, as possible: politicians on both the right and the left who can use it to ensure the support of people whose self-interest isn't, necessarily, well-served by their other policies; gun manufacturers who want to keep sales as high as possible (Think they're not implicated in getting our knickers in such a twist over the policies of the next administration? Think again!), as well as other commercial interests, such as the news media, which benefit from a politics of fear and hysteria.
What: I'm not going to try to list all the catch-phrases and arguments, since you all have noted enough of them to be going on with: "God-given right," "cold dead hands," the misuse of statistics by both sides... I'll mention just a couple of others, favored by the antis: "assault weapons," "urban predators"... we've all heard this stuff.
To whom: I think this is an important point, and easy to overlook. Most of the "arguing" around this issue is, I think, preaching to the converted. When Charlton Heston used to stand up for the NRA and rant about his "cold dead hands," was the goal really to persuade anti-gunners that guns are a good idea? Of course not -- the goal was to whip up the faithful to support the NRA. Similarly, when gun-control advocates talk about keeping guns out of the hands of "urban predators," they also are using a fear-based argument that's intended to energize their supporters. And the last is also an effective ploy to use with a lot of nervous non gun owners who just haven't thought about the issue very much...
Which brings me to my main point: the anti's have been more effective at reaching that group, which is, I think, the only one that matters in terms of changing public opinion on this issue.
melchloboo is correct:
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We need to focus on the group that is anti-gun only because they have been raised to think that everyone else they know is anti-gun, or that because they don't have a gun they must be anti-gun (cognitive dissonance). That group is probably the most easily persuaded.
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So, the question is how to make our case with those folks, who are nervous around guns because they're not familiar with them, worried about crime, worried about their kids (Oh, did I mention "school shootings" as a really great whipper-up of fear?) -- and worried about "gun nuts," too, for that matter.
I'd argue, for starters, that we need to find ways of lowering, not raising, the levels of fear and hatred around all of this.