What the British Tourist Arrest
Tells Us About American Civil Rights

When Jon Richelieu-Booth boarded a plane home to England after a Florida vacation, he had no reason to believe a simple photo — a harmless picture of himself shooting a legally rented shotgun at a gun range — would soon turn his life upside down.

But within days of posting that photo on LinkedIn, British police were at his door. Not once, not twice, but repeatedly, arresting him, seizing his electronics, and dragging him through 13 weeks of legal hell.

His supposed crime? "Possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence." The evidence? A smiling vacation snapshot taken thousands of miles away, in a country where the activity was not only legal but normal.

This episode would be absurd if it weren't so chilling. It reveals a truth Americans often forget: in most of the world, your rights exist only until the government decides otherwise. In the United Kingdom, there is no Second Amendment. There is no constitutional guarantee of free speech. There is no foundational belief that the people — not the government — are the ultimate sovereign.

So when a middle-aged IT consultant posts a picture holding a legal firearm in another country, the British state feels fully entitled to kick in the door, confiscate his property, invent criminal charges, and destroy a man's peace — simply because they don't like the image. …