Any time I've ever called the police, they always ask why I'm calling them. I've called about suspicious people, and worse, before. The person on the phone always asks me, "Well what exactly are they doing?"

So when someone calls in with "There is a man with a gun!" and the dispatcher asks "What is he doing with the gun?" There should be a difference in the way the police respond depending on whether the caller says, "He's robbing a 7-11!" or "Well, right now it looks like he's shopping for cereal, but earlier he was eyeballing the milk!"

Either way the police still have to go, and still should be cautious, but it seems like it'd be pretty easy to judge the situation if when you approach the person, they are just reading a magazine and eating a strawberry tart while they wait on their latte when you arrive.

Plus, let's say that a guy is walking down the street with a gun, you approach him, and he tells you that he's just walking to the store to buy some smokes. Everything sounds fine and you let him go. If he blasts the convenience store guy or not isn't up to the police, and neither is guessing in the dark at what his intentions might be.