Gun Control

So Christine and I were walking home from Queensway tube station today after a long day of work and two classes, when all of a sudden we get to our block (all residential town homes) and there's caution tape blocking the entire street and sidewalk off. Now, the only other time I have seen this happen was last summer in Tucson when every street intersecting with Campbell was blocked off in order to allow President Bush to pass safely down the road. This time, however, I knew the president was not driving down my street. After some prodding, Christine and I finally convinced the police officer monitoring the caution tape barrier to tell us that "there was a report that there MAY have been a gun on our block." Not a shooting...just the existence of a weapon itself.

In America, we have the right to bare arms. However, in London, it is a HUGE deal if you are caught with a gun because owning or carrying a gun is completely illegal. However, I still think it is extreme to block individuals from returning to their own homes on the possibility that a gun is within a quarter of a mile. As far as I know, no gun was found, because ten minutes later they took down the caution tape and let us pass. Moral of the story, I am very safe in London.

To finish, I just want to state that during our overseas orientation, we were told that there were a total of 49 gun deaths in England last year. In America there were tens of thousands. I definitely chose a good place to study abroad.