HOUSTON — A small meeting of a group seeking tougher gun laws was interrupted Saturday at a suburban Dallas restaurant when the woman who helped organize it saw something outside that startled her: at least two dozen men and women in the parking lot with shotguns, hunting rifles, AR-15s and AK-47s.

The scene unfolded near AT&T Stadium in the suburb of Arlington about 30 minutes after three women associated with the local chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America met inside the Blue Mesa Grill.

“I was terrified,” said the woman who helped coordinate the meeting and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she said she feared for her safety. “They didn’t want to talk. They wanted to display force.”

Image Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America provided a picture of Open Carry Texas members photographed Saturday from inside a Dallas-area restaurant. The gun-rights group was protesting the other group’s campaign.

The armed group of men, women and children was made up of members of a gun rights organization called Open Carry Texas, and they stayed in the parking lot about 10 or 15 minutes to protest the Moms Demand Action meeting and then left.