Had A Bad Scare Today.

[Gandalf]

Glad you are okay, Ice. Sounds like a really scary situation.

And what's with all this silly macho talk about guns? What if they threatened Ice with a gun first and he was just stood there with a gun in his pocket? What use would it have served then? And they could very well have shot him whilst running away.

The lack of guns in the UK is one of its better qualities. The fact that there are no guns out here and people are generally quite passive is partly what makes me feel completely safe.

If you American's are happy with your guns, then fair enough I am not going to try and change that. But most countries are happy without them and function more than effectively too.

What's "macho" about not being subject to whims of scum

This isn't the wild west, it's England.

Guns are not an acceptable solution in our culture. If guns were freely available Ice might well have been at the mercy of a gun himself and the fall out could have been far worse.

I am just glad it was only a knife and that he was athletic enough to get away.

A) You didn't answer the question
B) What if he hadn't been athletic enough? What if he'd been injured or tired or a little older? A knife is a lethal weapon. You're ok at your fellow citizens being at the whim of armed scum?

Just mentioning guns offends Miles' senstive nature....after all they are so scary

Don't be gay. I would quite like to own a gun when I eventually move into the countryside. I would love to live out my survivorman fantasies (but make my wife skin the rabbit). But in a city where there are no problems with drugs, criminals etc? There is just no real need to have one. They aren't scary, just not needed. Maybe this is very different in some parts of America where there is a lot more crime, violence etc. but that just isn't the case here or even in most parts of England. The situation Ice experienced was the exception rather than the norm. I never experienced anything like that in the UK and I am sure most Brits here would say the same thing. You just don't need to walk around with a gun.