I don't know I feel like "Big Gun" would not like that...
"What if you run out of batteries in your fusion cores when you are hunting?"
"It looks like an electric shaver, you might accidentally blow your own head off?!"
"It's made of Plasteel whatever that is, do you trust a weapon made of plastic!?!?"
To answer your question : When cellphones started to become a thing, I was a bit scared of the technology because I didn't know how it worked. There was a rumor that the phone waves could cause cancer, or provoke infertility, so I never slept near mine, and never put it in my pocket, always keeping it in a bag. So yeah, plasma guns ? 100% people who don't understand how it works will freak out
"Our founding fathers won our independence with gunpowder and projectile weapons! Lasers? Do you know what that sounds like? Lazy! Do you want a nation protected by lazy soldiers ?!" - A Smith and Wesson ad campaign, probably.