[Othniel]

My in-laws are Dutch and live in a small rural village. As I'm a teacher, I was curious about the school there, so I asked their neighbor (also a teacher) if she could arrange a visit. She could. The kids found out I was coming, and wrote a couple of hundred questions about America. A lot of them were about weapons, violence, and the like, the same kinds of things they see on TV. I pointed out to them that the US is a lot bigger than the Netherlands, and that, as such, we have more people and more "hot spots" than they do. Also, our media is more invasive, and is more apt to rely on the sensational. Most of them understood this, and the myth of shootouts in the street and everyone driving fast cars was, I hope, dispelled. They applauded at the end.

[goodnesswins]

Yes......a co-worker of my husband’s was on assignment somewhere in S. America......people there asked him...”Where’s your gun?” They were serious....they thought every American carried a gun around with them all the time.

[driftless2]

"myth of shootouts

Some years back I had a girlfriend whose sister was married to a German doctor. My girlfriend's sister one time took a trip to American with two of her children to visit my girlfriend and me. Her German husband told her not to drive from Milwaukee across the state to La Crosse because her car would be hijacked on the interstate. I could scarcely contain my laughter when my girlfriend told me the story.