"Being shot at is not a laughing matter..."

Well, for people who actually have been shot at, it quite often is something they make jokes about. The same way that there was air-raid humour in the London Blitz, for example.

But when it comes people who haven't been shot at, and who haven't gone through air roads and suchlike, but who have been caught trying to gain some advantage by pretending they have been, it is quite something else.