London mayor declares strict knife policy

kawasemi said:
Yes, you are completely right. UK knife crime does not involve high end knives...it is usually craft knives/kitchen knives/any other cheap bit of sharp metal that comes to hand.
The UK government is not targeting criminals with it's latest proposals because criminals don't mail order a knife a few weeks in advance...with their credit card...to their home address...unless they are REALLY stupid and want to get caught.
The new proposals will target everyday honest people because that is easy and when the government publishes the statistics for all of the honestly purchased knives that have been seized they will 'look good' to the paranoid voting populace...and in reality knife crime will not have reduced in the slightest.

...and let us keep in our thoughts and prayers all the small companies that sell knives online in the UK and all the custom makers who are now going to lose their livelihoods if the new legislation comes into force because they can't mail out their products. If previous legislation is anything to go by, there will be absolutely no compensation for the collapse of their LEGITIMATE businesses.

Kawasemi (in the 'knife friendly' UK!!)
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Indeed the current preposed legislation is not really/practically targeting anyone. It is a short term political move on the part of Theresa May to give the appearance that the conservatives are doing something constructive to fight crime without it costing to much. This after their diabolical performance at the last election and the destruction of UK policing. I knew this would happen as soon as I heard that Jo Cox had been stabbed with an FS replica.

The government is up against the wall having all but destroyed police budgets across the UK. This has led to a spike in crime across the UK I don't care what the official figures say. So to give the perception that they are doing something about it they have chosen an easy and unrepresented demographic to target, knife owners/users.
It's all about public perception and it has no basis in fact. As though drug gangs give a damn about knife laws.

Make no mistake about it this move will do nothing to prevent crime/violence but will go a long way to turning innocent law abiding citizens into criminals.
Politicians are the problem, they would rather be re-elected than pass laws that actually do some good....:confused:
 
The.Savage.Arti said:
not going against you i love knives more than guns but i do hold a soft spot in my heart for guns. couldnt the same argument be made that guns are tools as well? i hate when people call knives weapons for the fact that they are simple tools. i think my point is that there is strength in numbers and while the 2 communities dont have the same things in common when we stand alone we fall alone. #1mindanyweapon
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I think people should be able to have weapons, but I think calling all things weapons or all weapons tools is twisting language about in a rather Clintonian way. By way of example, deer can be dangerous, and occasionally eat birds. But we recognize that they're herbivores, not carnivores. Lions, on the other hand, are carnivores, whether or not they eat a bit of grass here and there.

Calling a gun a tool is like calling a lion an herbivore. Some tools can be used as weapons, but weapons are designed to be weapons, and guns, more than any other weapon, are purely, only weapons.

(So are some knives, but I don't personally advocate walking around in the streets with a 16 inch bowie knife, even though I could attempt to argue that a similar sized butcher knife or an even larger machete was primarily a tool. Sure, just, you know, not in a pub. Like with large herbivores, some things that are fine outdoors or in their own spaces are more provocative roaming around the city.)

The reasons to support weapon ownership and tool ownership are totally different, even if people often happen to enjoy both.
 
A standard that I heard was that an item may be considered to not be a weapon if it has a common, lawful purpose. A firearm used lawfully, may be carried every day, but is seldom put to use. The purpose of the gun may be entirely legal, but not common, as opposed to my pocket knife that is used often. I'm no expert in the law, but I know that a folding knife is easier to explain to a cop than an expandable baton.
 
Times have certainly changed.

Here is a true story someone found regarding exams at Cambridge University. It seems that during an examination one day a bright young student popped up and asked the proctor to bring him Cakes and Ale. The following dialog ensued:

Proctor: I beg your pardon?

Student: Sir, I request that you bring me Cakes and Ale.

Proctor: Sorry, no.

Student: Sir, I really must insist. I request and require that you bring me Cakes and Ale.

At this point, the student produced a copy of the four hundred year old Laws of Cambridge, written in Latin and still nominally in effect, and pointed to the section which read (rough translation from the Latin):

"Gentlemen sitting examinations may request and require Cakes and Ale".

Pepsi and hamburgers were judged the modern equivalent, and the student sat there, writing his examination and happily slurping away.

Three weeks later the student was fined five pounds for not wearing a sword to the examination.
 
Is there any representation in Parliament that is pro knife/gun/self defense? On one of the British knife forums it seemed as though they were walking on eggs, afraid of even talking about using a weapon for self defense. Where are the protests? Where is the outrage over being stripped of your rights? Is November 5th just a day to light sparklers?
 
Dfunk1210 said:
Why would we put in with the gun community? Guns are weapons, plain and simple. This is the image we are trying to bring knives away from so the general public comes to the understanding that knives are tools.
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Stand in solidarity, or become a tool/useful idiot that gets utilized in a divide and conquer approach to legislating. Your choice really. Don't think the focus on the AR-15 today, won't eventually drift to your machete.
 
not2sharp not2sharp The trend I notice is that the crimes/violence doesn't really go away just shifts its methods and with the methods getting more restricted it seems that perhaps the violence is getting more brutal.
 
Charlie_K said:
Stand in solidarity, or become a tool/useful idiot that gets utilized in a divide and conquer approach to legislating. Your choice really. Don't think the focus on the AR-15 today, won't eventually drift to your machete.
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Going around making knives a Second Amendment issue isn’t going to help our case. What will help our case is educating people about knives and their purpose as daily tools will. You know what has really been helping our case? Everyday harmless hipsters making knife carrying more common and changing the way people think about knives.
 
Dfunk1210 said:
Going around making knives a Second Amendment issue isn’t going to help our case. What will help our case is educating people about knives and their purpose as daily tools will. You know what has really been helping our case? Everyday harmless hipsters making knife carrying more common and changing the way people think about knives.
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None of which changes the fact that the firearm community is needed by the knife community. Now's not the time for turf wars over which side is right. Infighting doesn't benefit anyone except the dishonest who're trying to sell a political narrative.
 
Charlie_K said:
None of which changes the fact that the firearm community is needed by the knife community. Now's not the time for turf wars over which side is right. Infighting doesn't benefit anyone except the dishonest who're trying to sell a political narrative.
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This is true. The people that would see us all disarmed of guns would also see us all disarmed of knives. To them, they are all offensive weapons and they will try to take them both! Whichever goes first is not that important. One will follow the other.
 
The very people that can't wait to disarm law abiding citizens have private security and carry permits for themselves and their friends but can't stand the thought of anybody else doing the same.
 
Matt Bernier said:
Absolutely. My legal Leek was taken off me in NYC as part of what I would later learn was a PR stunt by the new DA to get a table with 3,000 knives on it for a photoshoot. (Most of which were visibly utility knives or Swiss Army knives.) The officer issuing my summons apologized to me as he did it, and told me he had to take a pearl handled family heirloom off a security guard the previous day. I was convicted of "brandishing a knife in the street" (the pocket clip was exposed), made to pay $160 plus the loss of the knife, and the conviction made me inelligible for census work. I still have to report it on job applications.
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I know the legal system in NYC is as bananas as London, but there are also a lot of good lawyers who will work for reasonable rates, if you ever get stopped there again. “Brandishing a knife” for a pocket clip is like being labeled a sex offender for tightening a belt after getting out of your car, and you should have(sorry) fought this to the bitterest end of the never ending appeals system.
 
skippyW said:
Times have certainly changed.

Three weeks later the student was fined five pounds for not wearing a sword to the examination.
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This was certainly ironic, given that wearing a sword would likely have prompted a terrorist-level panic in the vicinity.
 
Yonose said:
I know the legal system in NYC is as bananas as London, but there are also a lot of good lawyers who will work for reasonable rates, if you ever get stopped there again. “Brandishing a knife” for a pocket clip is like being labeled a sex offender for tightening a belt after getting out of your car, and you should have(sorry) fought this to the bitterest end of the never ending appeals system.
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At that point in my life, I had to sell books and halve my food budget to pay the fine, so lawyers were out of the question.
 
Matt Bernier said:
At that point in my life, I had to sell books and halve my food budget to pay the fine, so lawyers were out of the question.
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I realize it’s in the past, and sorry for your bad luck. I once got a three point ticket there in my tractor trailer. Would have cost a fortune in fines and insurance, plus one more and I would not have been able to drive in the 5 boroughs.(They have a 2 strike rule for truckers) Found an attorney online, spoke with him for 5 minutes, and for $250 on my credit card, he got the ticket thrown out. I didn’t even have to appear and miss a days’ pay.
 
Yonose said:
I realize it’s in the past, and sorry for your bad luck. I once got a three point ticket there in my tractor trailer. Would have cost a fortune in fines and insurance, plus one more and I would not have been able to drive in the 5 boroughs.(They have a 2 strike rule for truckers) Found an attorney online, spoke with him for 5 minutes, and for $250 on my credit card, he got the ticket thrown out. I didn’t even have to appear and miss a days’ pay.
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The attorney was likely working for the city in a complicated extortion/shell game. You're threatened with heavy fines that can't possibly be reasonable, but if you pay a fraction of that to a so-called "attorney" it's all dropped and you're free to go.
 
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