Now that Britney Spears is out of rehab and back to work (she went to at least three dance sessions in just two days), you can imagine the frenzy that ensues on each of her appearances. Wherever she goes, be it at AA meetings, church, shopping or just at a restaurant to have lunch with friends, the paparazzi are going too. She is permanently surrounded by them and every step she takes is filmed and snapped.

Without getting into more serious issues of how right or wrong it is to have the paparazzi invade someone's privacy to such an extent (at least a dozen cars are daily parked near the gates of Britney's house), such a situation was bound to burst on one day or another. And this is exactly what happened yesterday, when an overzealous bodyguard who had to make sure Britney got out of church safely pulled out a gun on a photographer.

The singer had just attended a Presbyterian service and she was making her way out of church when all this happened. Police officers had been summoned beforehand to block the traffic so that her car and the one in which her entourage traveled could get out without being stopped by the paparazzi. The crowd was kept at bay by the police, but one more resourceful photographer still found a way to get past the road block, making his way towards the church.

It was then that handler took out a gun, pointed it at the pap and ordered him to get out of the car. When the photographer asked him what he had done wrong, he was told that he had tried to run down a police officer, a thing that he strongly denied but to no avail. Says one witness to the whole bizarre occurrence: 'One guy tried to get past and two guards ran into the street. One whipped out a gun. He was shouting "Get out of your car!" The snapper looked so scared. He was saying "What have I done?" The guard said "You tried to run the traffic officer down". He said "No, I didn't".'

The paparazzo was handcuffed and then asked to wait by the side of the road. He was released later and no charges were filed against him. However, the bodyguard is not sorry for reacting the way he did, as the executive director of the church said today in a press release. 'One photographer was on the wrong side of the road and tried to run over an officer who had stopped traffic. He kept coming and one of our guards pulled a gun out. I cannot speak for the security officer, but he does not regret it. This is a church, not a concert', he explained to the media.