BBC: Scotland Police Utilizing Web To Hunt for Knives

phaserrifle said:
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.
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Depends where you are in the US. In the city of Boston, Massachusetts (about 25 miles south of where I live) any knife with a blade over 2 1/2" will get you arrested, whether it locks or not. The same is true in the Boston suburbs of Lynn, Revere, and Salem, MA. In NYC, good luck! Your continued freedom depends upon good concealment. Any knife that a police officer witnesses will get you put in jail. The same is true for Chicago, Los Angeles (and Los Angeles County), Washington D.C. and other areas. Are the UK knife laws the absolute worst or does this distinction belong to the US. Again, sir, it depends which part of the US that you reside in or travel in.
 
TOM1960 said:
Depends where you are in the US. In the city of Boston, Massachusetts (about 25 miles south of where I live) any knife with a blade over 2 1/2" will get you arrested, whether it locks or not. The same is true in the Boston suburbs of Lynn, Revere, and Salem, MA. In NYC, good luck! Your continued freedom depends upon good concealment. Any knife that a police officer witnesses will get you put in jail. The same is true for Chicago, Los Angeles (and Los Angeles County), Washington D.C. and other areas. Are the UK knife laws the absolute worst or does this distinction belong to the US. Again, sir, it depends which part of the US that you reside in or travel in.
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my point was that overall (on average, as it where) US knife laws are more lenient than british ones. as you are a federal legal system, and so have farily widely differing laws in different areas, some areas may well be more restrictive.

also I note that in boston, any knife under 2 1/2 inches is legal to carry, irrespective of locking mechanism. in the uk any locking blade knife requries "valid reason" no matter how long. even sub 1" (if such a thing even exists)

I suppose thats one advantage of our legal system. at least the laws are the same througout the country.
 
phaserrifle said:
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.
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You are absolutely right.
I'd like to point out that the 'legally valid reason' is a pure persecution-style law.

Legally valid reasons may include a butcher carrying a knife to work. This 'might' be seen as invalid if it can be argued that there are already knives at the place of work. The law can be used to screw ANYONE.

Most people will NOT fall into these categories in which case people can only carry 3 inch slip joints.

Oh and NO GUNS in the UK and if you shoot a robber in your home you're going to jail, the robber goes free and then sues you for shooting him. Can people in the US imagine if they took away your right to bear arms? We in the UK are already there.

So much for liberty and human rights....:jerkit:
 
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TOM1960 said:
...Any knife that a police officer witnesses will get you put in jail. The same is true for Chicago...
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Mmmm... not so much. Letter of the law is there, yes, but enforcement tends to be lax if you're not treating it as a weapon. I'm sure there are plenty of stories to the contrary, but Chicago police officers tend to be open-minded than oppressive about knives. Most folks I know have merely been asked interested questions (including balisongs!); the only story I heard to the contrary was because it was a 14-year-old punk with an obvious attitude. And that was when I was a 14-year-old punk with a slightly nicer attitude, many years ago.

Still, doesn't invalidate your point.
 
Lawmandan said:
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.
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I'm guessing from your handle that you are involved in law enforcement. Which would explain why you have nothing to fear from the police, don't worry about getting stop/searched, and can freely carry knives without worry.
 
DrFish said:
I'm guessing from your handle that you are involved in law enforcement. Which would explain why you have nothing to fear from the police, don't worry about getting stop/searched, and can freely carry knives without worry.
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He is a lecturer, I believe. Which is probably why he is so prolific with his nonsense. Of course nobody is buying it.

Simply put, comparing the state of knife laws in the very few US jurisdictions where UK-esque moronic politicians have legislated a state of total idiocy nearly as bad as the UK, does not make the UK look any better. Then there is the fact that self defense is not allowed in the UK, Gun ownership is banned to the point of being a pathetic joke, and it all plays into the government's hands for seizing more power. The citizens no longer have any means to resist a tyrannical government. So far under the boot, and some are still in denial.

Anyone who lives in the UK who is not against its draconian laws and the police state it has become, is a seriously disturbed or incredibly naive individual.

Lawmandan's motivation in seizing every opportunity to obfuscate the issue? Who knows.
 
DrFish said:
I'm guessing from your handle that you are involved in law enforcement. Which would explain why you have nothing to fear from the police, don't worry about getting stop/searched, and can freely carry knives without worry.
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unlike in the US, law enforcement officers don't have different laws to non-LEO's when it comes to knives. for example while in several states autos are LEO only, in the uk the law is the same for everyone.

however LEO's do have the advantage that if they are searched, they are less likely to be arrested, as their "valid reason" could be seen as "more convincing" by annother LEO, than if the same excuse was used, by the same person when not an LEO.
 
gun1.jpg


Sure glad that I dont live in the UK.
 
I remember an outrageous news story that I saw last year about a teenager who was mugging people on a London city bus.

Basically the mugger took a gold chain from another teen by only threatening that he had a knife, put it on, stopped to look at his own reflection in the CCTV camera, and got away with the loot.
Not a single person on that bus tried to stop this punk. How hard could it be for a dozen or so people to overpower a teenager who is armed only with a knife? And he never even brandished it during the robbery.
This disgraceful event says more about the average person in the UK than all of their asinine knife laws put together.

Where is a country headed when the vast majority of its citizens believe that self-defense is bad and immoral because the poor little criminal's human rights might get violated? :barf:
 
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Jose Wales said:
gun2.jpg


Are hand guns against the law in the UK?

Gun and knife laws suck...:jerkit:
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I thought they where.
I think you may have pictures of a shop dealing in de-activated firearms there, because gas operated semi-auto (or full auto) are allso illegal IRRC.

or it could be some kind of police storeroom?
 
phaserrifle said:
I thought they where.
I think you may have pictures of a shop dealing in de-activated firearms there, because gas operated semi-auto (or full auto) are allso illegal IRRC.

or it could be some kind of police storeroom?
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The pics are from my dads basement, he lives in Ky.

gun9.jpg
 
Your dad is lucky that he doesn't live in Massachusetts. I just returned from the Eastern Fishing and Outdoor Expo at the DCU Center (formerly the Centrum) in downtown Worcester. I was handed a complimentary Worcester Sunday newspaper. There on the front page was the story of a police raid in that city. Apparently, someone called an ambulance for a 50-something year old guy who collected firearms and militaria. The EMTs saw part of his collection and called Worcester PD. A warrant was obtained, the place searched, 81 firearms and thousands of rounds of ammo confiscated and the guy spent the night in the WPD lockup. As I type this, he is being arraigned on weapons charges in district court. I would not put any photos of weapons collections on the Internet. All you are doing is potentially buying yourself a whole lot of grief! EMTs routinely rat people out to the police. This is not the first time or the first state this has happened in.
 
Jose Wales said:
The pics are from my dads basement, he lives in Ky.

gun9.jpg
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ah right. I thought these where pictures from the uk, suggesting that firearms laws where not as strict as we think, or somesuch.

I don't normaly have a problem with guns in any quantity, so long as they are in the hands of law abiding people (which I am sure you'r dad is) and not pointed in my direction, but those pictures give me the feeling that there are far to manny guns there. hell, you could probably fire a different gun every day day and still not use the same one twice in a year.
 
TOM1960 said:
Your dad is lucky that he doesn't live in Massachusetts. I just returned from the Eastern Fishing and Outdoor Expo at the DCU Center (formerly the Centrum) in downtown Worcester. I was handed a complimentary Worcester Sunday newspaper. There on the front page was the story of a police raid in that city. Apparently, someone called an ambulance for a 50-something year old guy who collected firearms and militaria. The EMTs saw part of his collection and called Worcester PD. A warrant was obtained, the place searched, 81 firearms and thousands of rounds of ammo confiscated and the guy spent the night in the WPD lockup. As I type this, he is being arraigned on weapons charges in district court. I would not put any photos of weapons collections on the Internet. All you are doing is potentially buying yourself a whole lot of grief! EMTs routinely rat people out to the police. This is not the first time or the first state this has happened in.
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WTF?! I could understand going through, and making sure that they were all leagal, but that is just unnecessary!:(
 
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