Welcome to America!

Well, I got to see my first real American guns last week - most exciting and scarey.

I was walking back from buying lunch, in mid-Little Rock, when I saw a minor car accident: two cars, heading in opposite directions, both attempting to turn into the same lane of the cross-street, and bang! meeting corner-to-corner. I couldn't say whether either or both were using indicators.

One car, driven by a black guy, careened across the crossing road, and up onto a car parking area. The other, driven by a young white guy, kinda stopped right in the middle of the intersection. Both of the drivers got out of their cars and appeared to be OK at first glance.

However, the car behind the white guys one, also trying to turn it appeared, managed to stop abruptly, just avoiding rear-ending him, and 4 young white guys got out of that car, all screaming something and waving pistols in the air. I suppose in retrospect they might have been replicas but they sure looked real.

I ducked back to the shop entrance I'd just emerged from to get some cover in case the crazy bastards started shooting, and the black guy across the road dropped flat to the pavement behind his car, but the other driver just kinda stood there. At first I thought they were screaming abuse and menacing the black driver but after a brief observation it seems they were yelling at the guy in front of them, for getting in their way when they were in a hurry to ... and I lost that part of it.

After 20 or 30 seconds, they piled back into their rust bucket, and careened off down the street they had been turning into, driving partly on the wrong side of the road. They didnt actually shoot at all.

Welcome to the wild mid-west I guess.