kindly fashion that if Jamie was to be shot, and if I could ensure that his body was on our property by the time he or a colleague arrived, all would go well for me. He would personally testify to the threat posed, and jail would be out of the question. The level of gun violence in LA had become overwhelming, and my girlfriend and I decided to move to the more peaceful pastures of the high desert. We bought the home of a man who was packing, in the American sense of the word. I watched as he laid 21 guns on his bed, and wondered out loud whether he was expecting royalty. But these were just a few of his weapons. Most of his armoury had already been moved. Our new next-door neighbour (to be) was in prison at the time for shooting another neighbour point blank in the face in a dispute over who was the better shot. Like the city, guns were everywhere in the desert. The local yoga guru packed a .357 Magnum. The saloon blues singer was committing his third robbery of the same nearby convenience store when the owner - a frail elderly woman - finally cried enough. ''You can have the money, but I'm not getting down on that floor again,'' she declared. The same man was to rob the same bank twice, not realising he had already held the place up. I was the only person I knew that wasn't armed.