... then give a mocking laugh and say "those paranoid idiots think we're coming for their guns".
You reap what you sow. Your side put "assault weapons" front-and-center 25 years ago and now there are several hundreds of thousands, if not millions, are produced and sold per year because people informed themselves on the issue and embraced, rather than shunned, semi-automatic rights with detachable magazines and modern ergonomic features. Your side got the exact opposite of what you wanted.
Along the way they learned how your side thinks of guns and gun owners and what you plan was reduce gun violence. Your side looks to Australia's gun-confiscation in the 90's and California's oppressive and ineffectual regulatory system as beacons of progress.
So in one sense they're not paranoid; you're really coming for their guns. Their ability to buy new guns and their ability to keep their current guns.
Of course some of them are lunatics. The Branch Dildonians are one example, and those idiots in "militias" are another. And some of your side are so terrified of guns they panic at the thought that, maybe, somebody, somewhere, will get into an elevator with them while carrying licenced concealed pistol.
The social and economic agenda of progressives will so far more to cut crime, cut murder, and cut suicide than any gun control law. But making guns the focus is preventing it from getting done because it puts Republicans in the Federal and State legislatures and executive offices.
Again, you wind up getting the opposite of what you want, abdr we're all the worse for it.