Study Says: If You’re Packing Heat, You’re Likely to Think Everyone Else is Too

A new study finds that holding a gun has a significant affect on how you view others, results that are particularly troubling in light of the Trayvon Martin case. The study shows that if a person is holding or carrying a gun, he or she is more likely to assume that others are carrying as well.

The University of Notre Dame performed the study which had subjects look at images to determine whether or not the person in each photo was holding a gun, or a random neutral object like a soda can. While going through the images, the subjects were given either a toy gun or a toy ball to hold, and those who were holding the toy guns were more likely to think that the people in the images were holding guns as well.

The images that the test subjects were shown varied. Some of the people depicted in them were wearing masks, and as a group, were comprised of various races. The results remained the same, no matter what was depicted, regardless of what was depicted. “Beliefs, expectations, and emotions can all influence an observer’s ability to detect and to categorize objects as guns,” said one of the researchers. “Now we know that a person’s ability to act in certain ways,” such as by holding a gun, “can bias their recognition of objects as well, and in dramatic ways.”

Do you own a gun? If so, do you think that it affect your perception of others?