{"id":468,"date":"2015-08-06T10:21:13","date_gmt":"2015-08-06T10:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/2015\/08\/06\/i-brought-a-section-5-firearm-to-parliament\/"},"modified":"2021-10-15T16:28:49","modified_gmt":"2021-10-15T21:28:49","slug":"i-brought-a-section-5-firearm-to-parliament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/i-brought-a-section-5-firearm-to-parliament\/","title":{"rendered":"I Brought a Section 5 Firearm to Parliament?!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Valuable lesson #1: DO NOT BRING MACE SPRAY TO THE UNITED KINGDOM. Pepper spray is illegal in this country, even for protection. Unknowingly,\u00a0I\u00a0brought this gift from my Dad to London. Not only did\u00a0I\u00a0just bring it to London, I brought it to Parliament.<\/p>\n

\"kellydolanpic3\"<\/a>

Paraliament from the outside. I was not expecting what would happen once I stepped inside.<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u00a0approach Parliament\u2019s security guards and metal detector.\u00a0I\u00a0forget that I have pepper spray in my purse. I walk up to a\u00a06-foot\u00a0tall man that towers over me.\u00a0I\u00a0explain \u201cI have my pepper spray in my purse. Can I get it back after the tour?\u201d The guard confiscates my pepper spray and passes it down a line of high-grade security guards. My hands begin to sweat. I am quickly sent through security. I am approached by a women dressed\u00a0in light blue, who also feels like she is 6 feet tall, towering over me. The woman says, \u201cSomeone is on\u00a0their\u00a0way down to talk to you.\u201d\u00a0My\u00a0heart drops, my hands are still sweating, and I feel faint. What is going on?!\u00a0Who needs to come and talk to me?!\u00a0What have I done?!<\/p>\n

I\u00a0am directed into a small room. The room is sitting right behind the flowing line of tourists and metal detectors. I can see my group abandoning me as they clear security. I head into a claustrophobic room with 3 chairs, 3 desks, and a couple of Dell computers.\u00a0I\u00a0am directed towards the seat that is farthest away from the door.\u00a0I\u00a0sit down. I\u2019m unaware of what is going on. A tall security guard in his 40s explains, \u201cI am not allowed to handle situations relating to firearms. Mace Spray is a section 5 firearm in the United Kingdom and the police are on their way down.\u201d THE POLICE?! I feel faint again. How could I make such a giant mistake? I explain, \u201cI had no idea mace was illegal in the United Kingdom.\u201d The security guard tells me to sit tight and asks, \u201cAre you here alone? Is there anyone I need to inform about what is going on?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"kellydolanpic2\"<\/a>

This is the only kind of mace that is legal in the UK, made of foam and for children.<\/p><\/div>\n

I see my professor appear in the doorway after clearing security. While my professor and I are waiting for the police, I have the worst-case scenarios following through my head. Am I going to get a ticket? Will I be deported? Will I be arrested? Will I be able to return home? Will I ever be able to return to London? I feel a sick lump in my stomach, almost as if I had just eaten a giant meatball sub. America–the place where you can go to the nearest Fleet Farm and pick up pepper spray, class 5 firearm, for 4 bucks.<\/p>\n

One police officer walks into the room and sits down on the chair across from me. My anxiety begins to boil. It\u2019s hard to catch my breath. The police officer immediately recognizes that I am American. Who else would make such a gigantic mistake? The policeman was wearing a tall black hat with a gold pendent saying “Westminster” on the center of the hat. He wore mostly black and had a baton hanging off the side of his belt. His boots were tall and his uniform was intimidating. Luckily, the officer was very kind. 10 minutes go by. Tears in my eyes. I still feel like I have a giant sub sandwich in my stomach.<\/p>\n

The officer explains, \u201ceverything is fine and I just need you to fill out some paper work.\u201d The paper work was to claim that the mace spray was mine and I own it for protection. The officer explains that mace spray is considered a firearm in the United Kingdom. Mistakes like this happen a lot because many people are unaware of the cultural differences when traveling to different countries. The policeman claims, \u201cbeing caught with it at Parliament was a blessing in disguise. If you had been caught on the street with mace spray, you would have been arrested and maybe even deported.\u201d Once I heard this, my eyes widened and I got more nervous then ever. There is a long moment of silence. The tension is building. The officer asks for my signature after asking me a series of questions. I stand up. Barely able to hold the pen in my shaking and sweaty hands, I sign “Kelly Dolan”.<\/p>\n

\"kellydolanpic1\"<\/a>

After all that stress, I was allowed past the security and into the main part of the building…….finally.<\/p><\/div>\n

–Kelly Dolan<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Valuable lesson #1: DO NOT BRING MACE SPRAY TO THE UNITED KINGDOM. Pepper spray is illegal in this country, even for protection. Unknowingly,\u00a0I\u00a0brought this gift from my Dad to London. Not only did\u00a0I\u00a0just bring it to London, I brought it to Parliament. I\u00a0approach Parliament\u2019s security guards and metal detector.\u00a0I\u00a0forget that I have pepper spray in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[162],"tags":[166],"class_list":["post-468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel","tag-london-2015"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb2ffS-7y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1888,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468\/revisions\/1888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}