Thanks for your comments
Years ago I went to a show with my brother, a veteran musician, and he immediately keyed in on the drum kit on stage. It was comically huge, containing the drums of at least two normal kits. When the drummer walked out on stage my brother muttered, "what is he going to do. . . hide behind that thing?"
I sat next to the father of my daughter's classmate at a school recital. He carried a gigantic, high definition video camera, and was busily experimenting with white balance settings before the show started. "What's he trying to do," I thought to myself, "win an Oscar?"
As it turned out, the drummer was fantastic and the video-crazed dad was a professional videographer who gave out an excellent DVD of the show to other parents. But the first impressions were slow to wear down.
I think there is merit also to the idea that we register a weapon subconsciously when confronted with a complex, elongated device. My dad used to step out on the back porch with a shotgun and the starlings would fly away. If he stepped out empty handed they would stay put.
Somewhere in this thread is a more nuanced understanding of the benefits of a rangefinder in capturing a moment and, conversely, the advantages of the 1D with the 70-200 attached in drawing out appropriate expressions and moves from a glamour model. Better to stop there.