Until I was 42, I had never seen a real gun except on the belt of a police officer. I lived near an Army barracks for a decade and never saw a soldier carrying a gun.

In my twenties one of the crazy types at work brought a very realistic replica gun to work. He's the type that in some countries would bring a real gun to work, but here... it was just a toy to freak people out with.

His strange proclivities weren't what really freaked me out. The toy gun did. I could name the manufacturer instantly when I saw it. I knew how every part worked, and what every part was called. I could operate it without difficulty or confusion. I knew that it had a grip safety, a manual safety, and a trigger safety. I knew what all of those meant. I knew how to reload it, and what to do to release the slide from its locked-back position.

It was like... a dragon.

We've all seen dragons on TV and read about them in books. We can describe a dragon in detail. We can talk about their behaviour, their capabilities, and their nature. Most of us can name specific dragons.

But they're a thing of myth, not something real.

Until some guy brings a dragon to work and you realise that they aren't just figments of our imagination.

Somewhere out there, there's a country where every second person has a dragon like we have dogs here.

There must be a lot of fires there instead of just... barking.