There is a huge moral difference between "I won't sell guns" and "I want the government to discriminate against consenting adults doing something because I personally disapprove"
Not as large a difference as you might hope. Replace "guns" with "phones with freely unlockable bootloaders", and "I" with "7/10 manufacturers" (made up statistics, but it's in the ballpark I think). If that 7/10 trends up to 10/10, then their right to control their own devices effectively disappears, even though the government didn't get in the way. I wager those who value the right to bear arms, don't want to wait until they are barely able to buy guns, at a dwindling handful of companies, before taking action.
You’re really comparing “unlocking bootloaders” to the right for a gay couple to get married, make end of life decisions for each other as the next of kin, be on family insurance, etc?
Trust me, I live in the south. If the chains don’t sell guns, there will always be some local shops that will.
> You’re really comparing “unlocking bootloaders” to the right for a gay couple to get married...
I'm making a comparison to show you don't need the government to restrict rights - a handful of corporations that control a market can do so just as well. Thinking the government is the only threat to your rights is myopic. The specific activity I chose to illustrate this is utterly besides the point. (Though it is worrying that anyone on this site would think control of your own computer is unimportant.)
> Trust me, I live in the south. If the chains don’t sell guns, there will always be some local shops that will.
It is precisely the passionate pro-2nd-amendment attitude (the same attitude that directed ire towards Dicks) that assures this. To repeat myself - they don't want to wait till their backs are against a wall, to start pushing back. "Don't worry, you still have N-1 computing devices not locked-down by the manufacturer. N-2. N-3. N-4..."
The government can legally take away my property (eminent domain), my liberty by putting me in jail, they can force me to join the military, etc. Corporations have none of those powers.