However, I wonder how much fun I would have if someone I was with was handling or avoiding all sorts of perceived threats, or chastising me for whatever I'm doing because I'm acting like a tourist, when in fact I AM a tourist and doing things like taking photos or asking for directions. Is it better to pull your luggage through an even worse part of town, rather than stop for directions from someone who looks like they could help? I don't know.
Where did I say I chastised anyone? I said earlier
"I actually did bring up my observations and a need for caution and care." Expressing a calm and rational need to keep your eyes open is not chastising.
Where did I say I told them not to take pictures? I never told them that. I simply expressed
here on THR that perhaps stopping on a street to take a picture of an irrelevant sign, because it's cute, when a local person has JUST TOLD US what we were doing was not a safe activity in that area is perhaps not a real good idea.
Stopping to ask questions is fine, if you need directions. However, I had the directions, but they choose to just wander off aimlessly because they weren't paying attention. Yeah I found that frustrating. Did I chastise them for it? No, I just called them back in the correct direction. So to answer your question, no, there was no need for them to be dragging their luggage around in any unsafe part of town at all.
As far as "handling, or avoiding goes" I never told the group, we can't go here or there because it's unsafe. You go see the sights, and there are bound to be crowds. If they had told me they were going to go to an illegal dog fighting ring, that's there business, and I simply wouldn't have gone. Did I yell at my friend to stop hanging around the shell game? No. But when I saw them trying to goad him into betting, and another guy touching my friend, I stood there watching, and paid close attention. Did I yell out "Get your damn hands off him!"? No, of course not. Did I yell at the two guys approaching my friend at the train station? No. I called to my friend to let him know he was going the wrong way, and made sure the two gents did not follow.
I travelled to London alone for a vacation, and there were police with MP5s occasionally. I thought nothing of it. You never saw a firearm in the airport, or around the palace or tower? Or did you not go to those places at all? I remember well armed police in each of those locations. The guards at Parliament and Buckingham palace had some nice looking bullpups and MP5s. Police on the streets weren't armed, though. I also thought nothing of that. I wouldn't want to mess with them, they took a drunk gal down who jumped a barricade like a WWE superstar, and were basically ready to pile on her if she resisted.
I actually did not see any guns at the tower, or the palace, or the parliament building. But it was likely dumb luck that I just didn't cross paths with a LEO of any kind. Only in France. Again, maybe that's dumb luck. I don't recall at the airport.
Am I used to carrying a gun in a city. Yes. Perhaps I shouldn't have said I felt naked. It was more like leaving home without my keys or wallet. It felt odd to not have a gun on my person in that circumstance. Am I a paranoid person? I don't think so. Obviously some folks think I am. You are entitled to your opinion. But I was there. Was there a risk of theft? Yep. Was that why I would have liked to have had a firearm on me. No. I've explained that already.
The assumptions, conjecture, and words that have been put in my mouth have turned a thread that should have been about international travel, and an appreciation for American gun laws and freedom into a critique of my mental attitude. I'm done defending myself when I am the one who was there. If I did a poor job of adequately describing things, sorry. Maybe that's where the noise in this thread has come from.
Either way, this thread isn't about guns anymore, and no longer THR mission oriented. thanks to those who shared their experience and left it at that.
