As Bad As Things Are Here....

...things could always be worse.

We could be Great Britain, for example, where it's not t-shirts, foliage, or tourists that are causing the crime in the streets.

It's armed police officers.

READING, England -- During his training to become a British police officer, Ben Johnson recalled, an instructor told him and other recruits, "If you ever see somebody carrying a gun, turn and run away as quickly as possible."

Would you like some cheese with your surrender? And, they wonder why violent crime is on the rise over there.

"It was a bizarre situation," said Johnson, 34, a former police officer in Garland, Texas, and US Army soldier who moved here with his British wife three years ago and became this country's first non-British police officer. He said running from trouble was exactly the opposite of what he learned as an American police officer.

Now Johnson is publicly challenging one of the great traditions of law enforcement in Britain, what he calls the "old-fashioned idea of the unarmed bobby on the beat."

He has written to his chief asking for permission to carry a gun, arguing that Britain is no longer safe for unarmed and undertrained police officers. He says he will resign if the chief refuses.

Johnson's case has caused a media furor here, partly because an American is saying he feels less safe as a police officer in Britain than he did on the beat in the United States, which is routinely portrayed here as a gun-drunk Wild West.

But Johnson has also reignited a debate about whether more British police should carry guns in an era of terrorism and increasing violent crime. His supporters argue that British police need guns to protect themselves, but opponents suggest it would just lead to more gun crime.

So, by applying their version of logical thought (and I use both those words very loosely here), they could abolish the police force altogether and watch their crime rate drop to zero. It's the perfect plan! What's taking them so long? Sounds more than reasonable to me.

"The UK is changing rapidly, and the police have been slow to adapt," said Johnson, 6-foot-4 and thin, cradling his infant daughter in his lap in the dining room of his neat row house. "We should value the lives of police officers enough to properly equip them and train them to do the job -- even if that means getting rid of some old-fashioned notions."

While you're at it, try valuing the lives of your ordinary citizens. I know that's asking quite a lot, but as I keep telling my daughters when presenting them with a new food at dinnertime - try it, you might like it.[/pipedream]