Originally posted by Tilt
Fire arms are not an emotive issue to the average Brit. The great bulk of the population have never touched one........never mind wanted one.
To turn a Texan saying on its head................."its a Brit thing you probably wouldn't understand"
Interesting little story about Brit vs. American gun culture that I've probably told before here, but I'll tell it again anyway.
I was at the Thames Valley (UK) Police HQ a year and a half ago, on an all-access tour as part of my studies. We spent two days there, examining a lot of the everyday operations of UK police. Part of our tour on the first day was of the Firearm Response Vehicles (normal UK police don't carry guns).
My group (8 Americans) went down to the garage, and had a half hour introduction by two firearms officers. They ran through some common situations that they are called out for, how they respond, showed us their vehicle, equipment, and tactics.
Interestingly, handguns are strictly backup weapons for them. If they go, they go all-out with MP5's, body armor, the whole bit.
One of the officers, after checking the gun's chamber, held an MP5 out to me. Naturally, I took it and shouldered the weapon, making sure to observe all the rules for safe firearm handling that I'd been taught.
I looked up and noticed the two officers exchange glances, then both burst out laughing. I'm thinking, "Crap, what did I do?" I didn't point the gun in an unsafe direction at any time, finger was outside the trigger guard, etc.
Before I could ask what was so funny, one of the officers looked at me and said something like "Only an American. No Brit would have touched that, let alone have the first idea what to do with it."
It was, to say the least, an enlightening experience.
