Imagine landing back home after the trip of a lifetime. You’ve got sunburn on your neck, a suitcase full of souvenirs, and a bunch of photos you’re proud to share with colleagues. One of them shows you grinning ear-to-ear at a shooting range in Florida, holding a rifle you’d never be allowed to touch in your own country. Perfectly legal where you are, pure tourist fun. You hit “post” on LinkedIn and think nothing more of it.
Three months later there’s a knock at the door and police are reading you your rights.
That’s exactly what happened to one ordinary British bloke this summer, and the story is almost too absurd to believe – until you remember where we live now.
When a Holiday Snapshot Becomes “Evidence”
Jon Richelieu-Booth is fifty years old. He works in IT. Nothing about him screams “public menace”. Last August he went on holiday to the United States, did what thousands of Europeans do every year, and visited a proper gun range. He fired a few guns, took the obligatory photos, and when he got home he put one up on LinkedIn with a caption along the lines of “living the American dream for a day”.
Fast-forward a couple of weeks. Two officers from West Yorkshire Police are standing in his driveway. They’re there to deliver a “warning” about causing alarm with online content. He offers to show them the geotags proving the picture was taken in America. They’re not interested. A few days later they come back – this time with handcuffs.
He’s arrested on suspicion of illegal possession of firearms and stalking. Yes, stalking. From a LinkedIn post.
The Charges That Never Made Sense
Let’s be crystal clear: the photo was taken on private land in Florida where everything he did is 100 % legal and above board. No British law was broken abroad, and obviously no British law was broken by posting a picture of something legal happening abroad. Yet the arrest went ahead anyway.
The firearms charge was laughed out almost immediately. The stalking charge – apparently because someone, somewhere decided the photo might intimidate them – lasted a little longer but eventually collapsed too. You’d think that would be the end of it.
It wasn’t.
Police kept him on police bail for weeks, then rearrested him in October for supposedly breaching bail conditions. In the end the Crown Prosecution Service dragged him to magistrates’ court over a completely different social-media post, charging him with causing distress under the Public Order Act. That charge was finally dropped only days before trial.
“They seemed more interested in making an example than in actual evidence,” he later told reporters. “The whole thing felt designed to punish me for daring to enjoy something we’re not allowed here.”
This Isn’t Really About Guns
Don’t get distracted by the firearm angle. Swap the rifle for a photo of him eating a massive steak, riding in a V8 muscle car, or filling up at half-the-price petrol and the reaction would have been milder, but the principle is identical.
British authorities have decided that certain perfectly legal activities abroad are now morally suspicious when British citizens participate. Post proof that you enjoyed them and you risk a dawn knock or, at the very least, a quiet word about “community cohesion”.
It’s the latest chapter in a trend we’ve watched accelerate over the past eighteen months: the criminalisation of thought, opinion, and now even holiday memories.
A Quick Reminder of How Tight British Gun Laws Actually Are
In case you think Mr Richelieu-Booth was reckless, here’s the reality back home:
- Handguns have been almost entirely banned since 1997
- Semi-automatic rifles were banned after Dunblane
- Even humble .22 rifles require a firearms certificate granted at police discretion
- Only about 1 in 400 UK citizens holds any kind of firearms certificate
- Certificates can be – and frequently are – revoked if the police decide you’ve become “of intemperate habits” or posted the wrong meme
So when a British tourist finally gets to handle something exotic like an AR-15 on a supervised American range, the temptation to take a photo is overwhelming. It’s the equivalent of a Japanese tourist posing next to a full English breakfast the size of a dustbin lid.
The Process Is the Punishment
Perhaps the most chilling part of the whole saga is that nobody in authority seriously expected a conviction. The goal was never prison – it was compliance.
Thirteen weeks of interviews under caution, court dates, bail conditions, the constant threat hanging over work and family life. That’s enough to make most people think very carefully before ever posting anything remotely provocative again.
And it works. I’ve spoken to travellers who now delete every gun-range photo the moment the plane leaves American soil. Others simply refuse to go at all because “it’s not worth the hassle when I get home”.
The message is unmistakable: you can travel the world, but you don’t really escape. The long arm of British policing now stretches to your holiday camera roll.
The Broader Pattern Nobody Wants to Admit
This isn’t an isolated over-zealous constable. It fits a template we’ve seen repeated thousands of times since summer 2024:
- Person posts something legal but “edgy” online
- Someone, somewhere, claims to be alarmed or distressed
- Police record a “non-crime hate incident” or make an arrest “to investigate”
- Case eventually collapses but not before life has been disrupted
- Everyone else takes note and self-censors a little more
Call it lawfare, call it soft authoritarianism, call it whatever trendy phrase you like – the effect is the same. A climate where the safest option is to keep your mouth shut and your memories private.
Why the Second Amendment Suddenly Matters to Brits
For years British commentators loved to mock American gun culture. Then thousands of ordinary Brits started flying over, paying $100 for an hour at the range, and coming home with the same grin you see on kids leaving Disneyland.
Suddenly the commentary changed tone. You could almost hear the discomfort: how dare our citizens discover that the world’s biggest bogeyman issue is actually rather fun in a controlled environment?
The Richelieu-Booth case feels like the bureaucratic push-back. A way to remind everyone that some pleasures remain off-limits, even when you’re 4,000 miles away standing next to an American flag and a cardboard zombie target.
What Happens Next?
Nothing, probably. The charges are dropped, the police shrug and move on to the next easy target, and most people never hear the full story.
But a precedent has been set. The idea that British police can trawl your holiday photos for anything that might “cause anxiety” is now real. And once the principle is established, the definition of “concerning content” only ever expands.
Today it’s guns. Tomorrow it could be a photo outside a gender-critical meeting in Texas, or a snap of you eating non-halal meat in Dubai, or simply standing in front of the wrong flag.
In an age when every phone is a tracking device and every post is permanent, the Richelieu-Booth story is a warning shot across the bow of anyone who still believes national borders still protect you from your own government.
Maybe next time you’re tempted to share that perfect holiday memory, you’ll hesitate. And that hesitation? That’s exactly what they’re counting on.
One thing’s for sure – a lot of British travellers are about to discover the delete button works just fine at 35,000 feet.
