While the term “gun violence” is contentious in pro-gun circles–and not without reason, for the record–I tend to use it just as a means of describing a certain category of violent crime. It’s no worse from a moral standpoint than knife or hammer crime, it’s just different.

With that out of the way, let’s talk a bit about it.

In particular, let’s talk about a claim recently made that Americans are so preoccupied with the possibility of gun violence that they imagine it while on vacation outside of the US.

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.

So basically, they jump at a loud noise because they don’t recognize it, then blame gun violence here in the US for that?

First, if gun violence was so prevalent that people were just conditioned to expect it, they’d know that a confetti cannon sounds nothing like a gunshot.

For all their virtue signaling here, they don’t actually know what gunfire sounds like. They’ve never experienced gun violence themselves or even been in particularly close proximity to such a thing.

A loud noise is going to startle you. Jumping at it isn’t indicative of anything other than you were surprised by the confetti cannon.

So why are people somehow thinking it’s a gunshot?

It’s not because gun violence is so prevalent here in the United States. It’s because the media has conditioned them to think it’s that prevalent.

Over and over, we see reports and stories about just how bad gun violence is, but few that attempt to put the problem in perspective. As a result, just about everyone who doesn’t know any better is terrified they’re going to be gunned down at some point.

Statistically speaking, though, you’re not.

But because that idea has permeated someone’s brain, they don’t turn it off. So, they go overseas and they hear a loud noise and get startled, as what happened with the TikToker.

On the other hand, at least some of those reporting something similar may well not realize something. They may not have realized what they heard and thought was a gunshot was, in fact, a gunshot.

Yes, we have more gun violence than most places–we have a lot more non-gun violence than most places, too–but that doesn’t mean elsewhere is immune to the sounds of gunshots.

Again, the media has people believing that other nations are perfectly safe simply because of gun control, but ignores the fact that shootings happen literally everywhere there are more than a handful of people.

Yet folks hear the shot, realize it’s not right there and figure they were wrong because they’re in Paris or Madrid where that stuff doesn’t happen. Unfortunately, it does.

So yeah, this TikTok says something about the US, but it’s not what some would like to make it seem. It’s that our media is so busy trying to scare people into supporting gun control that they have them ill-equipped for the rest of the world.