While I do not hold a degree in the mental health sciences, as a former US Army MP, and retired business manager I think I have some practical understanding of applied psychology. There are benefits to increasing governmental control (at least for the government) that are overlooked, ignored, but nevertheless very real.
To put this in plain language, in the real world, like it or not, once you start backing down from a bully it's hard to stop. This is the overlooked reason for the governments' push for more and more power and control, gun or otherwise. In the world envisioned by the left, pretty much everything is controlled by an omniscient, untouchable, (but, just like in the fairy tales, somehow always benevolent) AUTHORITY. This AUTHORITY assumes responsibility for every aspect of life and living that leftists feel themselves, and therefore, everyone else, incapable of dealing with. Once government reaches a certain size, it takes on a quasi-life of it's own, (much like the "science project" I once found residing in the back of my refrigerator). Like any self-respecting parasite, it reproduces itself until the host can no longer support it, at which time it dies. Unfortunately, so does the host. But I digress. Big government is a creation of, and religion of, the basically insecure, timid liberal, progressive, (now there's a contradiction for ya) mindset that craves cradle to grave security provided by someone else. The problem with that was best described many years ago by Benjamin Franklin, who said "Those who would trade essential liberty for a little temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security and will soon lose both." Government, like nature, abhors a vacuum, and if you leave government to others, others will govern, at your expense. The surrender of your most basic right, that of self defense, carries huge and largely unrealized psychological implications. Once you abdicate your right of self defense, you are done. Go ahead and stick a fork in yourself. Losing, while not a desirable outcome, is at least palatable when you "go down swinging." Abject surrender carries with it the knowledge that in your heart, and soul, you are beaten.