Ill relay my own experience, though I have no pictures.
I just got back from the UK a couple weeks ago on emergency.
Anyway, I flew into Manchester airport, and almost crapped my pants when I saw the security cops there packing fully loaded SMGs at port arms, plus an
assortment of some nasty weaponry at thier sides.
No where in the US is security THAT tight. Since 9/11, I have flow into and from:
SEA TAC Airport (natch)
O Hare (Chicago)
Logan (Boston)
Cleveland
At none of these airports did I see anything remotely resembling what I saw in Manchester or even at Heathrow last year. The security checks were ten
times more intrusive (on my last trip, I got felt up and frisked twice before I boarded my flight). The security lines tighter, much more security
there. It really shocked me. On landing at Logan, the place was like, dead. I mean, Logan, thats the airport where the two planes that struck the WTC
took off from, you would think security would have been alot tighter there. But it was pretty mellow. Didnt see even a side arm, didnt see any cops,
though they may have been elsewhere.
Right after 9/11 is the only time I saw fully armored troops and police running about the airports, but that pretty much was justified, and no one
really gave it much thought. A year later, after 9/11, you saw a few national guard and some cops, but that was it, no guns. And then they completely
left the airports.
Now, its like no ones is guarding US airports, but #, the English ones were locked down better than some prisons. It was really wierd, in a country
with extra tight gun control laws, to see such heave small arms displayed so brazenly. Gave me the creeps, and I love guns!
Add to that, the disconcerting fact, that every bar I was in had cameras watching you, and cameras on amusement rides, in the streets.....
Its like 1984.