It's nothing new either! Aged about 18 in the late 70's (before Mountbatten's assassination) me and three mates were driving to Blackpool for a fun weekend. We stopped at a service station on the M6 for petrol when a guy pulled in next to us, grabbed a ww2 style rifle from his back seat and pointed it towards us, we drove off (Naively) thinking he was going to rob the petrol station (wrong weapon). There was a police patrol car on the M55 Blackpool motorway, so we stopped and informed them what had happened but they were not interested and just started intimidating us, taking all our details and running them through the computer (or whatever they had back then), checking our tyres etc. (like they were in on it).
Later, after we had, had a few pints, the guy from the petrol station turned up unarmed hoping to intimidate us. probably the biggest mistake he ever made!