I remember during the 80’s when people thought dungeons and dragons players were detached from reality due to a few incidents that happened.
Those were the ones who left their basements, lol…
Honestly, there are about 6 million firearms that could qualify as “assault weapons,” depending on your definition. Most of them are never used to commit a crime and the vast majority of crimes committed with a firearm are not committed using that kind of a weapon. The public imagination latches on to things, though.
OK, you say, but it is rational to look at a firearm and wonder if it is safe for just anybody to be able to have one. Why would anybody be worried about a furry? I’d say because the people in the costumes are entirely anonymous. In the example posted, there isn’t even a voice. That does make people wary, because they naturally wonder why this person is so totally cloaking everything that makes the person in the suit identifiable. Maybe it is jumping to conclusions rashly, like it would be rash to assume someone who owns a certain kind of firearm must be dangerous, but it isn’t that hard to understand.
If you were to ask me, I’d say that is why people are perhaps more wary of furries than they are of the SCA, where people have a persona but don’t try to obscure their identifying features. (Plus, the SCA is full of people dressed up like people you had to study in school, which makes them seem a little more intellectually hefty.)
