BBC: Scotland Police Utilizing Web To Hunt for Knives

[phaserrifle]

"I'm fairly sure we don't have enough armed officers available to arrest them at gun point."

No I suppose they will just throw you and your family face down on the floor while they search your living quarters and give anyone who gets to rowdy a beat down with their trudgeons

If you have illegal weapons in the house then yes, you would. I would expect nothing less.

I would assume that the only reason that that wouldn't happen in the US is because all your officers are armed, so it would be at gunpoint.

as the arrests for knives in these cases are mostly more along the lines of a couple of bobbies coming round and having a polite word followed by a fairly calm arrest, if any, there is no problem. raids are usualy either for drugs, or guns. if they are for guns, then the armed units are going to be doing the raiding.

 

[phaserrifle]

"Jackbooted" is an adjective meaning "Ruthlessly and violently oppressive."

I know, I was trying to lighten the mood a little.

 

[Rat Finkenstein]

I know, I was trying to lighten the mood a little.

I think if they wore actual jackboots, the mood would be lightened considerably. That would look hilarious.

 

[phaserrifle]

I think if they wore actual jackboots, the mood would be lightened considerably. That would look hilarious.

good point. It would look quite funny.

 

[Lawmandan]

keep babbling. I remember your first posts on this forum defending/supporting the known thief and scum bag Allan Blade along with your idiot friend Martyn.

If that wasn't enough to mark you as a schmuck, pretty much every post since then has been blowing the same smoke screen and propaganda about the oppressive government and laws that you appear to be a tool of.

"I reckon" you should take your bovine excreta and run on home.

I took an infraction from Esav for insulting you Rat. Which I'm more than happy to accept. I apologise to the Mods here for behaving badly as a guest here on BF. It's not my style normally.

But you raised the bar, Rat, so here we go.

I'm a schmuck and a UK government propagandist am I? A tool of my government?



Honestly, I despair sometimes.

If you want to engage in a rational discussion about the way the worlds knife laws are evolving then please do so, but don't try and insult me. Because there is nothing you can say that will personally annoy me.

Can we get back on topic?

Danzo

 

[cdf]

In reality , police have been gathering intelligence from opensource media forever . Just put up a pic of your crystal meth lab on facebook and see what happens . The only thing that is truly out of order is some senior officer trying to make public relations hay out of it .

Chris

 

[phaserrifle]

In reality , police have been gathering intelligence from opensource media forever . Just put up a pic of your crystal meth lab on facebook and see what happens . The only thing that is truly out of order is some senior officer trying to make public relations hay out of it .

Chris

thats all well and good. having a crystal meth lab is illegal no matter what way you look at it. problem here is that the knives are not in them selves illegal, or even restricted like firearms are, and yet they are still being confiscated. complicates matters a little, although personaly I see no intrinsic issue with it, although I doubt it would have any real effect, as the majority of knives used are either kitchen knives (and so avilable in every household, and a great number of high-street shops) or cheap folders/fixed blades, which are, I believe, fairly avialable in city areas, if you know where to look.

 

[TOM1960]

The UK is a fascist police state.



if you were thinking straight, you would not have just spouted that gibberish. Inanimate objects are just that. Posting a picture of your car is no different. What if you ran over some kid? Would they use the picture against you?

Not gibberish, my friend. When Leonard "Lenny The Quahog" Paradiso was prosecuted for the murder of Joan Webster in Boston, photos of Mr. Paradiso holding a shotgun and wearing a bandoleer of shells were introduced at his trial. If you were on trial for a serious crime, even if you were falsely accused, would you want photos of yourself holding deadly weapons to be passed around by the jury that will be deciding your fate? Not me! Even if you are sued civilly for the use of excessive force in a self-defense situation, such photos could easily come back to haunt you. You wouldn't go to prison but you could easily lose everything that you own to a judgment.

 

[Arkeld]

If you were on trial for a serious crime, even if you were falsely accused, would you want photos of yourself holding deadly weapons to be passed around by the jury that will be deciding your fate?

If a jury ever decides your fate, you´re screwed anyway. Condsider how dumb the average person is, then realize that half of them are even dumber.

That said, what kind of "evidence" would such photos be on a murder trial? If I pass around pictures of me lovingly holding a baby in my arms, will this prove I´m innocent?

 

[taspankya]

If a jury ever decides your fate, you´re screwed anyway. Condsider how dumb the average person is, then realize that half of them are even dumber.

That said, what kind of "evidence" would such photos be on a murder trial? If I pass around pictures of me lovingly holding a baby in my arms, will this prove I´m innocent?

The fact that the jury is 'dumb' is what everyone is counting on, both the defendant and the prosecutor. so yes pictures of you holding a baby could help your defense. Dumb jury's work for both sides ... and hopefully during jury selection you picked the right kind of dumb.

some one else said something about them targeting teenagers or young adults who looked and/or acted like gang members. criminal profiling is a good skill to have. unfortunately criminal profiling can be called racial profiling or something similar that has a negative connotation. its very sad that police sometimes do real criminal profiling and then get blamed for racial profiling. its also sad when the opposite happens. just thought i'd through that into the mix...

 

[Ozy]

Oh crap, how did I end up in here?

 

[phaserrifle]

Do the police in England have the right to conduct a search at will or do they issue warrents to search ?

a warrent or occupiers permission is required to conduct a search for property. arrest of a person without occupiers permission the police either need a warrent (to enter the property forcibly) or reasonable cause, which would be used when the person is either engaged in an offence, for example, a burglar is found inside a persons house, or where they are running from police (I.e persuit). I'm not sure how gardens and grounds come into it.

 

[topspeclt]

The UK is a fascist police state.

+1!:thumbup:

To cut a long story short.

What else can you now expect? FEMA concentration camps and coffins?

We have already lost most of our human rights. TBH I don't know what is left!

 

[Anaxes]

Do the police in England have the right to conduct a search at will or do they issue warrents to search ?

We are not quite Australia yet (thank God), but I expect they will remove the need for warrants eventually.
One point to note is they can apparently search your house without a warrant if you allow them entry, and that can be entry on a entirely different matter

They are quite well aware of this in general, so if you have an informal visit about your collection, keep the latch on the door before opening.
Remember you cannot throw them out or stop them once in.

Unfortunately you are very lucky if you never deal with them in a professional capacity as a law abiding shooter in modern Britain, and the lessons from this translate well to knives. Sadly it often is not merely about the job, more about personal opinion on what civvies should own, and that said many will think you're a bigger nut case for having a katana as opposed to licensed Beretta shotgun.

The opinion bar is automatically low, see?. Large knife collections are viewed as armouries, and individual knives are weapons.
The latter are the basic reasons why there are difficulty's.

 

[TOM1960]

The fact that the jury is 'dumb' is what everyone is counting on, both the defendant and the prosecutor. so yes pictures of you holding a baby could help your defense. Dumb jury's work for both sides ... and hopefully during jury selection you picked the right kind of dumb.

some one else said something about them targeting teenagers or young adults who looked and/or acted like gang members. criminal profiling is a good skill to have. unfortunately criminal profiling can be called racial profiling or something similar that has a negative connotation. its very sad that police sometimes do real criminal profiling and then get blamed for racial profiling. its also sad when the opposite happens. just thought i'd through that into the mix...

Not just criminal and civil lawsuit trials that you have to worry about. Potential employers also review MySpace and YouTube pages. One young woman, a Harvard University graduate, had a promising career downturn and a job loss due to racy photos that she posted herself on the Internet. The photos of her mud-wrestling another woman and dressed as a dominatrix was not what the three-piece-suit-types at the high-powered advertising firm wanted to see in their young employee. But by all means, if you have a deadly-weapons fetish and wish to proclaim to the world that you are a Rambo wannabee, go for it. Just remember what the consequences might be. Once a photo is put into cyberspace, it remains there forever. Think before you post.

 

[cdf]

Basically don't put anything on a social networking site , that you wouldn't put on a 10'x10' billboard with your name on it . "Electronic discovery " is old news in the criminal and civil evidence world .

Chris

 

[MJF]

Greater...you really have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to the US military and interrogation. As someone in the know (It's my job), I can tell you that it's a hell of a lot less nefarious than you make it out to be. That goes for military interrogations anyway...Now, CIA....I don't really have any firsthand knowledge.

 

[greater]

MJF lets get back on topic. This about Scotland Police using the web to hunt for knives, not a thread about military tall tales of denial.

 

[phaserrifle]

MJF lets get back on topic. This about Scotland Police using the web to hunt for knives, not a thread about military tall tales of denial.

"Tall tales of denial"
So I assume you know more about it than MJF (who seems to have first hand experiance from one side or annother (I assume from the interogators side, not the interagatees))

you continued the conversation considerably down this route erlier, why the sudden change?

 

[phaserrifle]

Yeah, our knife laws are severe, but they are actually less severe than in many parts of the USA, and certainly not enforced with the same sort of enthusiasm by the police. We never have to discuss what we will say to the police here in the UK, as to be honest getting stopped and searched is almost unheard of.

I can freely own, and even carry, dirks and daggers and all other double edged blades if I have a good reason. You can't do that in many US jurisdictions. OK, Auto's and balisongs are banned, but that's true of many parts of the USA as well. I can buy any Assisted Opener I want and have it delivered the next day, whereas I understand that the Texas Supreme Court is disallowing that.

the laws are more restrictive. their rules ban certain types of knife from being carried, full stop. mostly, as you say, double edged blades, autos and balisongs. (although I assume some historical daggers would be exempt when carried for re-encatment purposes, but I could be wrong)

while theoreticaly in the uk you could carry a dagger if you had "legaly valid reason". unless it's a collectors item, (and therefore covered by sligtly different ownership laws IRRC) there is no reason (that I can think of) to carry it. hence it is just as banned for carry outside your'e own home.
locking blade folders require a valid reason, no matter what their length, where is that a law in the US?
the length restrictions countrywide are far more restrictive than the average US ones.
even if you do follow the "under 3 inch, non locking folder" rule, a policeman can still confiscate it and arrest you should they feel that you are carrying it as a weapon. as the govt ect are portraying all knives as weapons (or so it seems) this leaves pretty much anything other than swiss army knives (not deamonised, yet) highly vunerable.

The US laws are either less restrictive, or might just break even IMO.