Yeah, it’s crazy that some states have weird laws about lockpicks.
I asked a buddy in the Cleveland PD about it, and he said, “The only time that charge has ever been brought up, is as an add-on for someone already caught, but even then, it’s extremely rare because most criminals don’t pick locks, they just break stuff to get in”.
Another funny story on topic.
Years ago, a coworker was bummed. Locked her keys in her car, and had to call a tow service to get her door open, and she was close to tears with the whole, “Got bills coming up. Didn’t need this extra expense” blah blah, so I said, “Is the tow truck here already? Want me to take a look?”.
I went out there, and the tow truck guy was getting out his tools and starting to jam the inflatable wedge in the driver side door. I walked up to the passenger door, opened the SAK (I taught myself to pick that first lock, and my mom’s car door, with the screwdriver on the back of my old SAK. When they changed the profile of the screwdriver on newer SAKs, I realized that the chisel on some SAKs had the same profile), stuck it in the lock, wiggled it around and picked the lock in less than 5 seconds, and opened the door, and said, “Here you go”, and walked back inside as the tow truck guy just stared.
Later on, the gal came back in to thank me, and said, “Wow. How’d you do that? You did it so fast”, then asked, “So why didn’t the tow guy do something like that?”, and it made me think about it for the first time.
Why don’t tow truck drivers pick the lock for a ‘locked vehicle’ call, and I realized it’s the same reason thieves and burglars nowadays, don’t. It took me many, many hours of practice to get to the point I could open different locks fairly quickly and easily. It’s just not something either tow drivers or criminals want to put in the time and effort to learn. They prefer methods that don’t take that kind of time and effort to develop.
That also means that those states with silly lockpick laws, have them on the books for the same reasons switchblade laws promulgated: some hysterical pansies saw them in movies and went, “Oh no! Scary! Can’t allow those!”
Outside of movies/TV, bad guys generally don’t pick locks.
Nowadays, lockpicking seems to be a skill relegated to locksmiths and nerds (read something a few years ago, about the ‘hardware hacking’ hobby. Basically nerds teaching themselves how to pick locks lol).
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