We were in Paris in July on Bastille Day - sitting in an outdoor cafe drinking Pernod (sounded like the right thing to do). Twice in the hour we were there, 2 separate groups of 3 decked out soldiers with assault rifles (actual assault rifles, not the AR style that people call assault rifles) strolled by. I wondered how I should feel about it and decided that I was totally OK with it. I thought that it would be OK even in Chicago where I bicycle commute through the West Side daily and maybe even OK occasionally in Negril, after dark. It is a slippery slope though and I fear once they are embedded, they will take on more and more power and maybe ruin all the fun.

Bastille Day ended up nicely for us but not for the hundreds injured and the 85 killed in Nice, France. That truck was eventually, and pretty quickly actually, stopped by these same type of soldiers.

Changing world calls for different responses. Sad, but true.