Right now, over 60 percent of people in the United States believe that crime is on the rise (though it’s historically low), and they also believe that owning a gun will make them safer. These beliefs are ripe to lead people, through affective realism, to genuinely see a deadly threat where there is none and to act accordingly. Now that we know definitively that our senses don’t reveal objective reality, shouldn’t this critical knowledge influence our laws?48
