Damn you Rob, I came here to post that.
I knew a few people growing up that used to carry guns. At first they were always nervous. Scared they would get caught, scared the gun would go off by accident, etc. Them being uneasy made them look suspect. This would cause those around them to watch them closer. At times people would wonder if they were a snitch.. this in itself could have got them shot or picked on making them have to use that gun. Luckily that never happened.
After the nervous phase they became comfortable. At this point no one payed any attention to them at all. They walked around like nothing was going on. More confident than before they had the gun, but not superman..The last phase was being over confident. The situations they avoided when they were nervous and neutral they were closer to. The end result was jail time. Take the gun away and you take away the macho man psyche that resulted in incarceration.
Its not the gun its the person carrying it. Without the gun people run, with the gun people stand their ground.