- Americans on TikTok are sharing stories about realizing they are instinctively scared about potential guns.
- While traveling abroad, users reported flinching at loud noises, even in countries where gun crime is rare.
American TikTokers are sharing stories about thinking they heard gunshots while traveling abroad in countries with stricter gun control laws, due to paranoia about gun violence that they say they've developed from living in the US.
The stories sprouted from a viral TikTok posted in March, where a user said his friend momentarily thought she heard gunshots while they were partying in Paris. The clip showed the user filming his friend screaming and flinching the moment a confetti cannon went off in a club, calming down a few moments later and beginning to dance again when it became clear that she wasn't in danger.
"POV: you thought someone was shooting but forgot you're not in the US," read the caption on the video, which received 18 million views.
Thousands of American commenters said the video was extremely relatable to them and that unexpected loud noises consistently make them feel fearful due to concerns about public shootings and gun violence.
@leoniglesiass ⚠️TW: 'gun violence' || we had fun though (we are aware this can happen outside of the US) #paris #france #clubbing #satire #awareness ♬ Oh No
"I'm a former American public school teacher. Any loud sound puts me in 'run, hide, fight' mode," one user wrote.
The video sparked a number of stitches over the following months. Users from the US have been sharing similar stories about mistakenly hearing gunshots while they were traveling abroad, leading them to a realization that people around them who aren't from the US seemed nowhere near as fearful as they were.
One user recalled a trip he took to London with his mother last year, saying he mistook the sound of a car running over an object on the road with a gunshot.
"My breath was heavy, I was shaky, my heartbeat was going fast. I literally grabbed my mom in survival mode and started hauling ass across the square," he said.
@prodbynate__ #stitch with @leoniglesiass #americaisthebadplace #london #gunviolenceneedstostop #gunviolence #us #uk ♬ Oh No - Kreepa
When he arrived back in the US after his trip, he said he heard actual gunshots not too far from his home as he was unloading his luggage from his car, but did not feel shocked at all. He explained that he was not expecting to hear anything that sounded like gunshots in London, but that in the US, hearing them was typical.
"That's when it really fully clicked with me. This is not fucking normal," he said, describing the fear of gun violence which he said many Americans have been subjected to.
Another user said that when her family was traveling in Japan in 2019, they went to watch a movie and heard a realistic gunshot sound effect during one of the trailers. The user said her friend instinctively ducked to shield herself and her husband started looking around for the nearest exit, but no one else in the theatre was fazed and some people laughed at their reaction.
"That was the time that I realized that gun violence in this country, while it is out of hand, it is incredibly out of hand," she said.
@fiathececaelia #stitch with @leoniglesiass i’m so over #thoughtsandprayers I want #policyandchange for the party that claims to #careaboutkids i dont see any #action #gunviolenceneedstostop ♬ Oh No - Kreepa
There have been at least 328 mass shootings across the USA so far this year, according to the gun violence archive. Guns are now the leading cause of death for American children, and doctors and medical associations are now calling for policy changes to curb gun deaths, Insider previously reported. Countries like Japan and Switzerland have managed to drastically reduce mass shootings and gun violence in part thanks to tight gun-control regulations.
The impact of gun violence on American culture has become a hugely popular topic of discussion on TikTok. Earlier this year, American expats took part in a trend on the app that involved sharing stories about how living in America "messed" them up.
Many users said that moving out of the US made them realize that they were much more suspicious of strangers they encountered than locals in their new countries were, due to their fear that people could be carrying guns. One such creator, Ilana Buhl, said that when a man approached her car to ask for help in Copenhagen, Denmark, she instinctively felt fear and assumed he had a gun.
"My gut instinct is not to help someone because I could get hurt," she said.
For more stories like this, check out coverage from Insider's Digital Culture team here.