but most 2a people prefer to take the high road or no road at all, hence the rights have been deteriorating for decades.
To be fair, we have the rights we're fighting to preserve (or should be fighting to preserve) on the line... protest the wrong way, and you lose them completely, for life. Push too far (in MA at least) and you might find yourself "not suitable" and deprived of the same rights entirely, instead of just partially, without due process. Never mind that 2A people tend to be responsible, risk-averse, upstanding citizens, they're also typically people with foresight. "I lost my privileges which should be rights, while fighting for my rights which are treated as privileges!"
Unlike cases of other widely celebrated civil rights battles throughout US history, the "skirting the law / outside the law" 2A protest consequences have teeth. You can't go for back alley blowjobs like the gay rights movement, because back alley pistol purchases carry much stiffer sentences (pun intended) - you can't have an underground club, it will wind up full of alphabet boys and be prosecuted by the state and feds six ways from Tuesday; can you say "party van"? How about the black rights movement, then? Firehoses and German shepherds have nothing on what the MA kopsch would to to a bunch of LTC-holders marching through the streets with full feature, post-ban ARs - and the 2A folks likely wouldn't be smashing/burning things. A sit in? Good luck, a hickory shower and a southern drawl would be a blessing compared to a 308 from some over-zealous uniform who gets to play Rainbow Six in real life with that Rem700 collecting dust in his trunk.
If this seems hyperbolic I'd point to the many, barely-criticised-in-media instances where the ATF / feebs in general have shot families, pets, children, or just set a bunch of US citizens on fire, over guns... Which seems a shitty alternative to batons, riot shields, and firehoses which we are told are "the most evil parts of US history!" - I would also point out that the constitution makes explicit reference to gun rights. There's nothing about "gay rights" in there, and you have to do some serious gymnastics to get to "racial equality" on the level of forcing individual private citizens to do shit they don't want to.