Competing theories of arousal vs salience and object enhancement vs reduced perceptual processing as explanations for the weapon focus effect in eyewitness identification were examined. Two hundred male and female students viewed a videotape of a male or female intruder rudely barging into a classroom while carrying one of several objects (a book, gun, or an unusual object) and demanding to know the whereabouts of another student. Feature accuracy recall of both the intruder and the object were assessed on a postexperimental questionnaire. Results supported the salience and reduced perceptual processing hypotheses suggesting that weapon focus may be a special instance of a more general salient object effect. The pattern of findings were different when the eyewitness and the intruder were of the same sex than when the sexes were opposite suggesting limitations on the weapon focus effect. An own sex bias in eyewitness identification was replicated when no weapon or unusual objects distracted eyewitnesses, but was reversed when a weapon or unusual objects were present.