US law: guns and French cheese - compare and contrast

On his blog, Americablog.com, John Aravosis takes a look at a graphic which has been pretty widely circulated around the Internet recently, especially after the shootings in Aurora, Colorado.

It illustrates the relative  ease (written into the US constitution of course)  with which an individual can legally purchase and own a firearm in the States.

And it contrasts that with the restrictions there are in some parts of the country with importing cheese - French cheese in particular.

Aravosis set out to explore how much myth there was surrounding the seemingly ridiculous comparison.

His conclusion? He couldn't "confirm that any of the cheeses listed in the graphic above are actually "banned" in the US" because there exist variations, depending on the way in which they're produced and age, which make them legal.

That said, the graphic, while not entirely accurate, surely shows just how ridiculous the United States appears to an outsider in terms of its gun laws, the individual's right to bear arms as covered in the Second Amendment and....of all things....the need to protect its citizens from cheese - of all things.

Toulouse shootings - seen from an expat bubble perspective

The deaths of three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in the southwestern city of Toulouse on Monday after an unknown gunman opened fire on them has become not only a major local and national story, but an international one too.

Shootings in Toulouse and Montauban (screenshot from France 2 news)

All major news organisations, local, regional and international, have been carrying reports on the shooting, the reactions and the link that has been established to the separate shootings and deaths of three soldiers in the same city and the nearby town of Montauban last week.

The candidates in next month's first round of the presidential elections all suspended their campaigns for one day.

The current president, Nicolas Sarkozy, as well as his main opponent, the Socialist party candidate François Hollande, have both visited Toulouse since the shootings, as have several other candidates and current government ministers.

A minute's silence was held in schools throughout the country on Tuesday.

Turn on the radio or the television or pick up a newspaper and you'll more than likely catch an update on who has said what, speculation about the gunman's motives, the police investigation that has been launched, the concerns of parents over the safety of their children, the fears of another attack...in fact you cannot miss hearing, seeing or reading about what happened.

Not even if you're unable to speak French because BBC, CNN, Sky and others have all been covering developments.

The region of Midi-Pyrénées, in which both Toulouse and Montauban are situated, has been put on "scarlet alert", the highest terror alert in France.

So it's hard to live here and not at least have an inkling as to what happened - right?

Wrong.

This was posted on a thread about the "scarlet terror" alert in the Midi-Pyrénées on one of the many sites for mainly native English-speakers to help them get to grips with living in France.

"Please explain what you're talking about," wrote (link withheld) the contributor

"I live in L'isle-en-Dodon, Haute Garrone...! (sic)"

Just for those of you who don't know, and at the risk of being repetitive, Haute Garonne is one of the eight départements in the region of Midi-Pyrénées, and its main city is Toulouse.

L'Isle-en-Dodon is a small town (two thousand inhabitants) 70 kilometres or just over one hour's drive away from where the school shootings took place.

No comment.

Shooting outside nursery school in Lyon UPDATE

Update.

According to Le Figaro, police have taken a 17-year-old in for questioning.

He was discovered in a building near to the school and had apparently been "trying out his new air rifle with a group of his friends," regional security official, Xavier de Fürst told AFP.

(Previous story)

Police are still hunting for a man in the French city of Lyon, who shot and wounded several people outside a a primary school in the centre of the city on Friday morning.
The shooting occurred around 11.15am local time as parents were gathering outside the the Harmonie-Rebatelle nursery school on la place du Docteur-Rebat in the third arrondissement.

Up to 11 people were treated for minor wounds and according to AP (French) three of them were taken to hospital but quickly released.

The gunman, whose identity is unknown, used an air rifle, according to the local police who found a lead pellet at the scene, which has been cordonned off.

He then fled and a special elite police unit has been dispatched to try to find him.

A spokeswoman for the local education authority in Lyon, Anne Le Scanff, told AP that the shots had not been aimed directly at the school but at passers-by in the vicinity.

"At no time were the children in any danger," she said. "They were all inside the school at the time of the shooting and had no idea what had happened."

LCI - a 24 hour French television news channel reports that a psychological unit was set up at the school following the shooting and traffic has been blocked from entering the area.