Common sense knife control?

Are you in favor of any laws restricting knives?

  • Nope

  • In some extremely limited cases

  • Yes, but I think the laws in my state/country are too restrictive

  • Yes, and I generally agree with the laws in my state/country

  • Yes, and I think the laws in my area should be more restrictive

Results are only viewable after voting.
David Mary said:
Agreed. Not only designed to help them, but designed in such a way as to incentivize personal responsibility, empowerment, and good moral conduct.
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This can work with an individual who has a mindset to know they need to change, they are humble and they have a desire to become better and give up their ways to accept the right and good way. They see the benefit for doing so.

However there are others who have a mindset that is twisted not knowing or admitting they need to change because they see it as they are entitled to behave the way they do and do what they do. They are proud and arrogant not having any desire for change only that everyone accept the way they are. They have no compassion for others and don’t care.

The key words here are humble and proud. A person can humble themselves or be humbled. It’s a choice, having recognized the need and the benefit versus the consequences. Usually a proud person has to be humbled by a disability that forces them to change rather they see it or not. I’ve seen this happen and it isn’t pretty. If not then they have to lose more and more until they see it or they meet the end.
 
I voted Yes, and I generally agree with the laws in my state/country but I'm Canadian it's way different here and I've been used to it my whole life. Knives as weapons even self defence are illegal but knives as tools are ok. OTF and butterflies are illegal and common flipper knives get confiscated at the border. There's no length restrictions and the system is based on intent and basically common sense like why do you need that machete walking around in downtown Calgary?
 
OrangeBlueOrangeBlue said:
I’ve seen enough gory knife pictures on social media to know you don’t need criminal intent for someone to get hurt. As someone who dislikes overregulation, I’d love for you to explain why anyone should be okay with this scenario: “sorry, Mrs. Jones. We’ve gotten a lot of calls about little Timmy’s PE teacher carrying a comically large claymore on his back like he’s Mel Gibson, but there’s nothing that says he can’t have it, so we have to let him carry it at all times.”

Should every law that’s commonly broken be abolished?

If my kid’s kindergarten teacher wants to carry a pocket knife, I’m fine with that. If the kindergarten teacher thinks it’s a good idea to carry a machete at all times, I’m questioning why this person is allowed around kids at all. “Absolutely no restrictions” means everybody who walks into the school can carry any blade they want. I cannot fathom why it should be okay to bring your katana to parent-teacher night.
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Restricting what citizens carry in pocket or use in public in a responsible fashion is very different from restricting behavior that is genuinely menacing and possibly dangerous to bystanders . :)
 
FL23833 said:
I'm Canadian it's way different here and I've been used to it my whole life. Knives as weapons even self defence are illegal
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A common mistake. I suggest you review the Canadian Criminal Code, as it does not say what you think it says.
 
David Mary said:
A common mistake. I suggest you review the Canadian Criminal Code, as it does not say what you think it says.
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I know all about our criminal code. Next time a cop stops you and asks what's the knife for say self defence and see how it goes.
 
Having not read far into this, I said yes for limited cases. I wouldn’t support selling knives to minors. I think that’s the parent’s choice.
 
FL23833 said:
I know all about our criminal code. Next time a cop stops you and asks what's the knife for say self defence and see how it goes.
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In short Summary, the Code states that carrying a weapon for a purpose dangerous to the public peace is an offence. Carrying a weapon concealed is an offence. A visibly open carried club with spikes is not against the law. Of course, it will attract a lot of attention, up to and including law enforcement, inevitably. And officers are going to assume high potential risk to themselves and others on a call like this. But unless the person is acting in a manner a reasonable person would think should cause alarm, the officers won't really have a reason to detain the person. Walking down the street with it swinging it from hand to hand? Maybe that's a purpose dangerous to the public peace. Walking with it draped over a shoulder with a protective cover that eliminates danger from the spikes? No problem. How about on the belt? No different. Unless this person is acting in a menacing way.

A friend I presented with a scenario like this: open carried large fixed blade, which, say a witness to a car accident happened to be carrying. The witness, when asked, admits it has no real function his small folder doesn't do, and so is there purely if he is assaulted beyond his natural capacity to repel. He understood the Code as I do; he said he wouldn't arrest such a person, but he would at least strongly discourage the practice. He's been a police officer nearly a decade.
 
Well, it ain't like I have to answer :D

I do wanna point out an example you used that I would not consider a "law" per se. You said no knives in prisons, did you mean the inmates? If so, once someone is convicted of (or even charged with) a crime, their rights are reduced and on hold. They also can not have beer in prison. I don't think supporting that is supporting a "law" so much as supporting incarceration (including involuntary mental health centers).
 
So if you're walking around (in Canada), and are simply using a spear as a walking stick: no problem?
Curious... but fair!
 
Murindo said:
I'm happy here in Texas where all knives including dirks, daggers, Bowies, balisongs, automatics, and gravity knives of any blade length have been legal for the last several years and there haven't been any issues.
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So are there any apartments available in your Town?
 
EngrSorenson said:
Having not read far into this, I said yes for limited cases. I wouldn’t support selling knives to minors. I think that’s the parent’s choice.
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I respect your point of view, and I can understand why parents would be upset if someone sold their child a knife without the parents permission, but I'm very thankful that we have no such regulations here in California.

One of my fondest childhood memories was buying knives without my parents knowledge. Although I was permitted to have knives, mom was just as likely, or more than likely to say "No" if I asked if I could buy a knife on my own. Better to suffer punishment than ask for permission was my motto growing up. The vast majority of knives I had growing up were acquired without my parents permission.

There was a camping store that my best friend and I walked past to go to junior high. They sold knives. My friend and I used to drool over them. One time we got a note from his father so we could buy machetes. There's NO WAY my mom would have let me have a machete. We had to buy my friends dad one too to bribe him into writing the note. That machete ended up serving me well for decades. I used in in my landscaping business, on camping trips, and as a yard tool at home.

The knife pictured below is one that I bought at the same store on my own, no note was required (I also bought one for my friend). It was my first fixed-blade, and although I didn't know it then, it was a total piece of junk. But I loved it, I secretly carried it around in my sock under my pants. It made me feel prepared, and super-cool. The pic isn't mine, I just happened to stumble across it one day browsing the net. My knife eventually broke.

I feel bad for all the kids whose parents forbid them from having ANY knives, ever. I fear for the future of those kids, and what kind of adults they will be, when they are forbidden from having one of the most basic, and useful tools a person can posses. I've known some of them, and they have virtually no tool-using capabilities whatsoever. I know I'm a better person for having grown up with my own knives.

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Bob Denman said:
So if you're walking around (in Canada), and are simply using a spear as a walking stick: no problem?
Curious... but fair!
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Not exactly. Law enforcement will be called, and will have to determine the potential danger to the public peace. That in itself is already a problem for everyone. And a spear is more attention grabbing than a knife, and more alien to the environment as well. Much more likely to be called in than a five or seven inch open carried fixed blade. Officers show up and could argue its imposing size and high potential lethality are liable to cause panic and that this creates a situation dangerous to the public peace. Not to mention other circumstances such as behavior and other things that could indicate danger.

The same argument would be much weaker against an open carried knife. But in the end, if officers judge that it poses a threat to the public peace, you're going through the ringer, regardless of the outcome.

Even if it is not intrinsically illegal to carry a weapon, even one for self defense, I agree that the outcome of doing so may very well be as though it were illegal, if the other circumstance around it did not make it so already.
 
Just to take the "what if?" game to the next level: what can the LEO'S do if you are friendly, and engage them in a charming exchange of pleasantries?
 
Perceive that there is no danger.
 
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