My son and his wife and 2 children were in a local mall last week and while distracted for a moment her purse was lifted and the perpatrator long gone.

On the subject of Mr Heston... <BR> <BR>'Chuck' has been quoted that the only way anyone will get him to give up his gun is by prising it from his "cold, dead hand". <BR> <BR>I was just wondering what it would take to get some common sense into his cold, <BR>dead HEAD !?!?!?!

Washington DC at Union Station. One of them dropped packages at the top of the escalator from the Metro -- I helped and tried to walk around. Wallet gone.

I once had all my luggage stolen from my car in Sintra, Portugal at the Pena Palace. Maybe I should have paid attention to the the HUGE billboard that said "Beware of Thieves" in every language. If the Duh fits, wear it.

Is this a troll. sorry trick question?
All major cities have that problem. Here in Boston, at concerts outdoors or the marathon or the regatta, the pickpockets are at work. I see it often on the subway and will yell out, watch your pockets and handbags. It's not a big crime so it's not posted in newspapers, nor do people go on forums to discuss it unless they are on a forum like this to say how they were ripped off in Rome or whereever.

Well, the gun argument may be a little emotional here, but there is a shred of truth to it all.
I know a number of people personally who have been robbed at gunpoint in the US. It happened to my sister three times in about a five year period. It really is not uncommon especially in many big cities for a person to pull a gun and demand the purse or wallet (of course, sometimes the gun may be fake, or it could be a finger in a pocket, who knows?). It takes a lot less skill than pickpocketing.

Yet, oddly enough I've never heard from anyone to whom that gun thing has happened in Europe!

Re: <i>Of course, that's largely because there are so few gypsies here.</i>

True. But the U.S. does have its own version of gypsies, the so-called Irish Travelers, largely based in Murphy Village, South Carolina.

As the website below notes, &quot;The Irish Travelers are a reclusive community of itinerant workers, about 2,000 of whom live in lavish homes and mobile homes on either side of U.S. Highway 25, straddled between Aiken and Edgefield counties. They are descended from 19th century Irish peddlers, and some have reputations as scam artists.&quot;

http://www.rickross.com/reference/ir...ravelers2.html

I haven't seen any lately but they are here and some folks would pay them to steal something from a boutique. Most of these gypsies were children and some woman in a station wagon would drop them off and wait for them. Not all gypsies are thieves. One of the Gypsy Kings father', is the king of the gypsies in France who have their yearly fete and blessing of the saints in the Camargue.

I wonder if there's ever been a verifiable occurence of a gypsy throwing a baby at someone, or if that's simply an urban-Euro-legend.

Gotta admit, it <i>is</i> a great concept because what tourist is going to let a baby go ker-plunk on the sidewalk.

Do you people ever read the police blotter? I live in an upscale town, and people report their wallets &amp; cell phones being stolen all the time, mainly from an unattended/poorly watched purse or coat. Crime happens all over the world, it is just sometimes scarier &amp; more inconvenient when it happens in a foreign place. When my wallet was stolen in Texas, I had to replace my credit card, etc, but if it had happened overseas, I would have needed a new passport, etc. Obviously a major hassle, requiring the assistance of an embassy, etc. Also, if you think Europeans don't have weapons &amp; commit sick crimes, I have some stories that would make you believe otherwise. By the way, anyone ever heard of the mafia? What about the Ukrainian mafia?

I live in a big US city, and ride public transit to and from work. The &quot;talking buses&quot; warn passengers to keep an eye on their bags and wallets.

I fear that tourists here are often targets, just as American tourists are abroad. Though I don't think our pickpocekts are nearly as skilled or clever as those I've seen in Italy, Spain or London. In many cases, it's a pretty obvious grab and run.

I've never been pickpocketed anywhere. A guy did try to snatch my wife's purse in Florence.

I got mugged. I would rather have been pickpocketed. Muggers have weapons.

Oh wow, can we get any more liberal with the anti-gun propaganda? (Nothing against liberals but please, you don't need to run Mr. Heston's name into the ground, he is an honorable man.)

A gun in the hand of someone who

A) Is not a criminal scumbag
B) Is not a complete idiot

will do no harm to anyone.

For instance, Mark David Chapman is and was an incurable scumbag. He bought an *ILLEGAL* gun and used it to kill John Lennon.

Let's say John Lennon had owned a gun. Would anyone have cared? No, because he would not have shot anyone with it.

Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

gypsies are not the problem .... you should see the sophistication of the mafia.
they come into your house after gassing the dogs and your home.. you sleep through the whole thing.. they steal your car and take eveything valuable.. coming with metal detectors and going right for the little/or not so little jewelry you may have.

you wake up feeling ill. not knowing what happend til you find your house torn apart, the dogs salivating.. and an empty garage.

True story.. several families Valencia spain (madrid, too, alicante) spring 2004.

when one realizes there are hundreds of people in spain with no legal way to earn money.. it is not surprising there is so much crime, especially when the judicial system can do very little even when they catch these fellows with an apartment full of stolen property.(Madrid spring 2004)

i do not know WHY this is so, but ask ANYone who lives here.

Also, they make getting a work permit sooooo hard.. many have no other recourse.

and not much of a welfare system here to say the least.

we have many drug users, and used to have the highest rate of new cases of aids in europe. one mugger attacked a friend and BIT her (madrid metro stop ATOCHA) to get her fanny belt off.

many passion crimes... but luckily not many have guns yet...
dont know WHERE we would be if they did.

Tourists and visitors to big cities anywhere are targeted by professional thieves. But, in most places, the ratio of tourists to thieves is so high that it's unlikely that any individual tourist will be pickpocketed.

When I was 19 in Penn Station NY a man came over and was chatting me up. He said he would help me with my bags when the train came in. I say him talking to other woman. When I got on the train my wallet was missing.

I'm a bit surprised that experienced travellers would identify guns as a cause of crime. You will probably want to avoid Switzerland, where there is an assault weapon in virtually every home, and where shooting is a very popular sport. Yet somehow those guns are almost never involved in crimes; perhaps its a better class of guns.

I have been pickpocketed twice here at &quot;home&quot;, Wilmington, Delaware.

Not once in Europe.

SuzieC, where in Wilmington? I go there all the time and never watch my things!