I couldn't give a monkeys about it. I don't do anything I shouldn't be doing.
With respect to cameras all over the place, couldn't care less about that, either. Just over 12 years ago now, I was out in my local town, where someone I went to school was repeatedly punched for no reason by a group of people outside one of the two nightclubs in the town centre (not to mention all the bars, of which there are one of the highest ratios per square mile in this country), before falling the floor and cracking his skull on a kerb. I left that club 10 minutes after they'd taken this kid away in an ambulance.
No-one was ever caught for that, even though the guy was left brain damaged as a result. Who knows, it could have been me if I'd left a little earlier and if it had been, I would want the bastards responsible to be thrown to rot in Jail for a very long time.
The year after, the town got the most sophisticated set of camera systems (at the time) in Europe (and it's not even that violent a town, in comparison with some of the major cities) and that sort of crime tends to be cleared up, those responsible charged and/or actually caught as they're doing it, given that the Police tend to be directed to the scene by the camera operators.
And even if the Police don't turn up as it's happening, the camera operators are able to follow the offenders for miles, which means that they are, more often than not, caught and charged.
I can't see how any of that should cause anyone who's behaving as they should any problems.
With respect to the comment from Llama about "handguns aren't allowed in the UK." They were at one point (and still are, to some extent.) I think the rules surrounding handguns were tightened up after the Dunblane massacre. I'll have to explain that a little more clearly:
If you hold a firearm here, you have to have a license for it (and are subject to certain requirements before you're entitled to own one.) Strict conditions are placed on how you store firearms, too. They HAVE to be locked up in cabinets, etc.
I could be wrong on the exact changes to the law, but after the guy who had gotten a license for his handgun (and I think that in order to get that, even then, he may have even had to have a psychiatric evaluation to ensure whether he was mentally fit to own one) and then marched into a primary school and butchered a bunch of kids, the law was changed so that even those who had licenses to own handguns had to keep them locked away at a shooting club they belonged to, rather than in their homes.
Further to Llama's comment, that "The criminals, who ignore handgun laws (duh), know that us law abiding citizens are easy pickings." That very problem exists here. There have been several documenateries here, which have shown how easy it is to get ahold of one here in the criminal fraternity.
The Rhys Jones Murder trial began this month, an 11 year old kid who was mistakenly shot two years ago has begun here. And the guy who's just gone chiefly on trial (along with a bunch of other guys belonging to the alleged perpetrator's gang) was ONLY caught as a result of the Police being able to track the shooter's movements through CCTV footage. They'd have caught him even more quickly, had the owner of the bar, outside of which this poor kid was shot, agreed to installing CCTV outside his bar when first asked.
It interests me that there have been a few short sighted opinions from people who don't live in the UK in this thread (as well as a few from people in the UK), too. Yeah, we don't allow people to carry handguns. Yeah, we have a lot of CCTV footage. But there are other things we're more liberal on.
For instance, if you're caught with Cannabis (even if without intent to supply, based on whatever amount/plastic bags that you might use to distribute that stuff to 'clients') in the US, you're faced with what? That is a question, rather than a statement. I'm guessing it's more than just a slap on the wrist (which is what you'd get here, if you were caught smoking it, or carrying an arbitrary amount around.)
Same with underage alchohol consumption in many States. Not sure whether this is just a rumour, but I'd heard that the PARENTS of underage drinkers in the US in some States are charged with whatever for their kids' actions. That just wouldn't happen here, unless the offenders were regularly known to Police (and even then, I doubt they'd do much more than slap an ASBO (Anti-Social Behaviour Order, which would just stipluate that if they get caught misbehaving again, they'd get sent to juvenile detention, or whatever).)
A couple of years ago, I needed to renew my passport, since it was about to expire. Around that time, they were announcing plans to introduce a microchip to the newer passports, which would include an iris scan, finger print, photo, etc. I think that just ended up containing a photo, after a bunch of stupid liberals complained that that would contravene human rights, or whatever.
I HATE flying - I get nervous before I get on a plane, and even more nervous as it lands.. and that can last a few hours after I've gotten off the plane.
So, when I fly to Philladelphia to see the guys at the office, I get really agitated weeks and even months before I'm due to go out there. I know once I land, I'm going to have to go through some bullshit fingerprinting, photo-taking, etc through customs. Oh, and I'd have had to make sure that, as an "Alien", which is what everyone who is not a US Citizen is rudely referred to as, I've filled out a couple of forms - one's a visa waiver, the other's something that proclaims that I've not come to cause trouble, intend to stay as an immigrant, or something like that.
That in itself wouldn't be so bad, but there are, I think, 22 customs desks open at Philly airport. 20 are reserved for US Citizens, the other 2 are for everyone else. So you get maybe 30 people on each flight, getting more or less a desk each, and the other 150 or so squeezed into two desks.
I'd have been far happier if I could just have my passport zapped and them know it was me, but them's the breaks.
I travelled over to Prague in June (I think) for my now Brother-in-Law's Stag do (Bachelor party.) He's a pilot and managed to get cheap flights to and from the place, the downside being that we weren't guaranteed on flights we wanted. We ended up having to miss one flight, since it was full, and ended up in the airport bar, waiting for the next flight.
Got the next flight back, though, after having already had a few drinks. Because the flight was with the airline he pilots, he knew all the cabin crew, who kept on supplying us with more booze as we requested it.
We were seated at the front of the plane adjacent to three girls from the US, and after speaking to the captain of the flight we were on (who we both knew), were the first off the flight as it started disembarking.
There was one queue through customs for all European passport holders and another for non-European passport holders.
Our queue was PACKED full of people, the other International queue had just these three girls in the line. They were told by the customs guy that they hadn't filled out similar waivers, which would have been mandatory in the opposite situation. They started kicking off about civil liberties and never having been told that they needed to do all of that on the flight.
I wonder how they'd have felt if they were in my position when I first travelled to Philly, which was essentially the same position as they were in. Except, rather than being at the front of the queue when they were told this, they'd have already waited nearly an hour to get to the customs desk.
Bottom line I'm trying to make when trying to make a judgement on different countries from yours, is respect the country you're trying to evaluate. Don't compare it with your own country, since that just won't work.
If anyone gets through that lot, well done.
