Public carry, private fear: empirical evidence on fear and avoidance responses to visible firearms

Introduction The Supreme Court's 2022 New York State Rifle Pistol Association v. Bruen decision recognized a constitutional right to carry firearms in public. Its 2024 United States v. Rahimi decision applied Bruen's historical approach, considering the affrighting tradition's going armed laws prohibiting carrying weapons in a manner that terrorized the public. Little experimental research has examined fear responses to visibly carried firearms in ordinary public encounters. The current preregistered between-subjects experiment examined whether firearm visibility was associated with fear, hostile intent attribution, perceived proximity, and avoidance or reporting intentions. The study also examined hostile intent attribution and perceived proximity as potential mediators of the association between firearm visibility and fear, and rural identity as a potential moderator. Methods Participants were 415 U.S. adults recruited through Prolific in February 2026 (ages 18–81; M = 41.31, SD = 12.46). Of these, 54.0% were male and 44.3% female; 71.6% identified as White, 10.4% Black, 9.2% Asian, and 4.6% Hispanic. Participants were randomly assigned to view one of two 6-second videos showing the same individual in a public setting, either carrying a visible firearm ( n = 205) or no firearm ( n = 210). Welch's t -tests compared conditions, and a bootstrapped parallel mediation model examined indirect effects on fear. Moderated regression and moderated mediation tested rural identity as a moderator. Results Participants who viewed the armed individual reported greater fear ( d = 1.15), hostile intent attribution ( d = 1.47), perceived proximity ( d = 0.87), and avoidance or reporting intentions ( d = 1.86) than those who viewed the unarmed individual. Hostile intent attribution measured judgments about the individual's intentions, while perceived proximity measured felt closeness or intrusion. Together, these variables statistically accounted for approximately 81% of the total effect of firearm visibility on fear. Gun owners and non-owners showed similar differences between conditions, with no significant moderation by firearm ownership. Rural identity did not moderate the proposed pathways in the predicted direction. Discussion The findings provide experimental evidence that viewing a visibly armed individual in the setting studied was associated with greater fear, a response relevant to the historical affrighting tradition.