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Your concern that our history of gun measures mirrors those of early English common law is noted.
I believe, however, that our society has achieved a level of technology that can appease diverse concerns that have become polarized in political discourse--public safety, individual rights, and a model of weapon control/dissemination that is in accord with our Constitution.
At least some of the lawsuits I have read about were filed in an attempt to increase gun manufacturers' culpability for thei product. They seemed to have been in response to major manufacturers' refusals to impose safety features upon themselves. After the lawsuits can establish the responsibility of the manufacturers then legislature can be utilized to mandate certain controls.
We can either allow technology to continue to strain against our norms (culture lag) or restructure our legal discourse to create an impetus for weapon manufacturers to adopt more advanced techniques to control and operate our weapons.
For example, nanochips embedded in weapons can ensure they are only fired by the intended owner. Our telephones, vehicles, and even computers have unique identification; we take those as a matter of course--not as an infringement on our rights.
Special interest groups have utilized political and legal discursive practices to divide the attention of the general public between various concepts--and given the impression they are mutually exclusive.
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