Wow. People are really scared of guns. I've been around them my whole life, and I've only seen anyone act stupid with one a couple of times. Once was a newbie mistake, where a girl at one of our gun safety classes was still holding her riflein her hands and turned around to talk to someone. Don't ever do that. :cringe: She got blessed out (too hard) by the instructor and was in tears for 15 minutes.
A friend of a friend in hunting camp one year thought it would be a good idea to practice his "quick draw". He got made fun of instantly, which turned into genuine anger when it was discovered taht the gun was loaded.
Just recently, someone let someone else borrow their car and didn't mention that there was a loaded gun under the seat. That was marginally dumb, but not criminally stupid.
That's it, out of thousands and thousands of encounters with "dangerous armed gunmen". Oh yeah. My dad put a BB through the back of a couch while showing me the safe way to put away my new BB gun. Poor dad.
In his defense, the mechanism on that gun was complicated as hell, and it was impossible to get BBs out of the chamber without firing. Unsafe design.
Where does the fear come from? Stories? Ignorance (the dictionary definition, not the PC insult)? They can't hurt you on their own, and they're not more likely to hurt you when carried, unless the person has the intention of hurting someone. In that case, it's the person to be feared. It reminds me of a picture of me standing next to our horse Winterhawk. I was about 7, had never been around horses before, and was petrified. The thing was huge, and I was positive I would be devoured if I got closer than 6 feet. Of course, we became fast friends soon after (he was the world's smartest horse, you should know). But I still remember the sensations I felt when that pic was taken. I had been next to cows since babyhood, and was more cavalier around them than I should have been. But not horses. I had enough movie scenes of unbroken horses rearing up and stomping people in my head that I simply couldn't convince myself that he wasn't going to explode into violence as soon as I got within striking range.
I'm guessing fear of guns is something like that.