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Kilkrazy wrote:

Why, Oh Why? does the government not make it illegal to do armed robberies with real or pretend weapons?

It's not armed robbery in the UK if you use a fake weapon? I'm not sure about all states, but in Ohio it's Aggravated robbery if you have a deadly weapon, and Robber if you use or threaten force (which a fake weapon would count as), while Theft doesn't involve any force at all. I can't check case law anymore, but the Ohio Revised Code says that "“Deadly weapon” means any instrument, device, or thing capable of inflicting death, and designed or specially adapted for use as a weapon, or possessed, carried, or used as a weapon." That can be read that an airsoft gun, carried as a weapon, is a deadly weapon, but probably not.

Sorry, I should have put in the </sarcasm> tag.

Yes, it is illegal to do an armed robbery in the UK with fake guns. In fact I think the penalty is the same whether the weapon is fake or real.

Kilkrazy wrote:Sorry, I should have put in the </sarcasm> tag.

Yes, it is illegal to do an armed robbery in the UK with fake guns. In fact I think the penalty is the same whether the weapon is fake or real.

Ok, I figured it would be. Robbery is an old, old common law crime.

See, in the US the legal penalties are the same (although Armed robbery is about the worst crime for sentences that doesn't involve murder, rape, or kidnapping), but you also run the very real risk of the 75 year old man running the counter shooting you with the .45 he keeps under the counter.

reds8n wrote:

I do think they seem shocked by many aspects of British culture, like in the excellant Indy article above all of the American students are amazed at how often we swear, or at least the variety and colour of the words we use, whilst they tend to use the word "gak" almost exclusively. The american guy i used to argue over comics book with said it took him a while to get used to being greeted by his friends with the phrase "ya alright, ya daft witch?"

I was going to start with something I over heard in Borders one day but I will pause for a moment and ask "am I missing something with the quote button?" The reason I ask is that when I clicked on the quote button to use reds8n quote, the word "witch" had changed to something shorter and ending "t" (I've changed it back on my post! Is this a free feature of the board?"

Anyway back on track. I was in Borders once (large book store) and I over heard some young Americans getting their knickers in a twist over magazines such as "Nuts", "Loaded", "FHM" etc. They seemed quite shocked that such publications were on the lower shelves