Model Boat Mayhem
Mess Deck: General Section => Chit-Chat => Topic started by: Martin (Admin) on June 01, 2010, 02:21:14 pm
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What's the law regarding carrying pocket knives, in particular a small 40mm knife on a key ring?
http://www.shieldsgazette.com/news/Keyring-knife-lands-dad-in.4350899.jp
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Absolutely ridiculous...I have an ancient penknife which belonged to my father, it's in my lunch bag and I always carry it with me to work, always useful to have one, you never know when you need something cut...string, branches, it also gets used as a screwdriver, chisel, tin/bottle opener, all sorts of things.
The law has gone mad...
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Martin
Reading the whole article the knife is described by the police as a lock-knife
It is against the law to carry a knife which has the means to lock the blade
in an open position
Yours aye
Ned
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"..What's the law regarding carrying pocket knives, in particular a small 40mm knife on a key ring?.."
In many places, particularly London, the concept of a fixed 'law' has been superceded by continuously renewed 'anti-terror' legislation.
Under this regime there is no longer a fixed rule which you have to obey. Instead, if a policeman claims that he feels 'suspicious' or 'threatened', or, indeed, just feels like it, you can be arrested and held in jail for up to 28 days with no charge or reason given.
People have been arrested under this legislation for 'being too tall', 'looking too confident', and 'walking on a cycle path', so worrying about the precise length of a knife blade would seem rather pointless. In most cases, though, you only get imprisoned for a few hours or a day....
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It's an offence to carry any knife in public, even if you're not behaving in a threatening manner, and you can face a penalty of two year's imprisonment and a £5,000 fine for doing so.
Under certain circumstances, it's legal to be in possession of a knife in public:
* If it's a tool of the trade (i.e. you work in catering or carpentry);
* For religious reasons (i.e. a Sikh kirpan);
* If it's a penknife (pocket or folding knife) less than three inches long (although it may be considered offensive if carried for the purpose of causing injury or harm).
Information Officer ok2
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i have for years carried a micro leatherman on my car keys, its tiny, but useful, never had any trouble, i once forgot it was in my coat pocket on my bunch of keys and i got on a flight othe USA with it !- never got stopped even at an airport...
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Me too Guy, I broke mine over the weekend but someone mentioned that pocket penknives were now illegal, so I wanted to check....
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This is just a stupid waste of Police and the courts time, it's about time common sense prevailed in this country. The laws are a mess and appear to be open to interpretation. A friendly piece of advice by the officer would have carried more weight with this apparently law abiding citizen, instead he is now rather embittered and will look on the police with a different pair of eyes. This sort of stupidity does no-one any good and simply wastes everyones time and costs money into the bargain.
We know the police are having to work to a quota scheme so do I smell 'quotas' here? :((
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I have been known to carry one of these in the town centre :}
(http://s1.postimage.org/B6LvA.jpg) (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=gxB6LvA)
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"...but someone mentioned that pocket penknives were now illegal, so I wanted to check..."
The last government created a new criminal offence for every day they were in power. For example, I understand it is now illegal to sell grey squirrels, impersonate a traffic warden, offer Air Traffic Control services without a license, or fail to nominate a neighbour to turn off your alarm while you are away from home...
Under these circumstances I do not think anyone can have a clear idea of the law without costly professional help. Amateur 'checking' will have very limited value. And, as I said earlier, if a policeman wishes to arrest you for any reason whatsoever you will be arrested, and if he decides that your knife was a danger there will be no point at all in claiming that it was legal....
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Good grief, I thought the lawmakers were idiots in America.
Here you are allowed to carry a knife as long as the blade is under 6 inches, switchblades are illegal though. I do happen to know of one knife salesman that travels to different flea markets and has certain verboten items under the counter, he will sell them to you if you meet his criteria, that being if you have the cash.
You can go to one of these flea markets and by yourself a shotgun or rifle, sometimes even a pistol. Not being a citizen here I am not allowed anything with a rifled barrel so I can have shotguns and black powder weapons.
Seems that while you lot may be getting loaded with a lot of ridiculous laws you are by far the safer country as I would rather not see redneck Joe walking about with a firearm over his shoulder.
Ian
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We have had so many laws passed by our last 'government' <*< that we lost track. We probably break some of them everyday because we don't even know they exist. As for being a safe country, life is cheap here, people are mugged, cut up, shot, stabbed, robbed and driven insane by some sections of the community but always it's the same, little or no punishment follows. No punishment I have heard of in recent years appears to fit the severity of the crime. The government we had massaged the figures for crime to make us all feel safer but just talk to folk who live in some inner city areas to get the real truth behind living in violent Britain.
I know I would never walk a city street alone at night in the UK.... in some areas, not even in the daytime!
It appears the punishments are certainly in place for the average working man though, the culture of money grabbing by the authorities means they are free and easy at handing down fines for almost anything. Should you commit some violent act, no prison sentence neccessarily ensues as they are trying to keep the prison population down, you either get off with it or pay some large fine.
I'm afraid the justice system here is a little too skewed toward the offender rather than the offended.
I would like to think the new government we now have may begin to redress the balance but something tells me we may wait a long time for it.I think the EU bill of human rights may just get in the way.
It would be interesting to find out what really happens in the case of the bloke with the keyring knife.... bet he gets fined!
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Over here in Australia I got caught with my knife in a pouch on my belt by the cops when asked by the cops whats it I explained that i use it to cut my oranges for my lunch and they wailked away tassie48.
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In Australia it's illegal to carry a knife of any sort but, in the case of a pen or pocket knife, as long as it was in your pocket, and you're not waving it around in a threatening manner, it's unlikely that you would be pulled up.
Tassie48 was carrying his on his belt where it could be seen, a common practice among many rural Australians. Anyway, as he said, it's to cut up oranges for your lunch O0
Peter.
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If you just google on 'penknife law' you will find lots of cases which illustrate what I have been saying - that the police will apply sanctions to you if they find you in possession of what used to be a perfectly legal penknife. Here is a case from last month - http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/story.html?id=2917918
The classic case is the Brigadier who was hauled off his train when a scanner detected a small penknife in his luggage in 2006 - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article1087628.ece
Whether these things are legal according to DickyD seems to be irrelevant. If Martin carries one of these on his keyring I would recommend him to avoid coming to the attention of the police. In fact, I would recommend everyone to avoid going anywhere near a policeman, whether in possession of a penknife or not. Luckily, there are so few police seen on the streets nowadays that this is easier than it used to be....
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Luckily, there are so few police seen on the streets nowadays that this is easier than it used to be....
Take a look on the side of your nearest dual carriageway, thats where they live now.... sat in a car with the ANPR system and speed cameras doing all the work.
This is one of the many reasons why I left the UK.
Finnish law is black and white... Blade longer than 5cm (2 Inches in old money) your nicked unless its part of traditional dress. Finnish police are still respected by the public and the courts have a much more structured and severe punishment system.
You assualt a police officer in Finland and you WILL go to prison for a minimum of 5 years. With a weapon 15 years and killing a police officcer.... you wont be coming out except in a box
The police here take no crap from anyone... they tell you to do something you do it, no arguments or your in the back of the van. Simple.
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Don't forget that our "nice" new Con-Dem government have said that if you don't like a law, just let them know and they'll repeal it :-))
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Hmmm Ftf, I'm not so sure about that, remember we're broke as a nation and if the law contained a heafty fine I suspect it will remain firmly in place. The government has a massive uphill struggle ahead to rake in as much dosh as possible and fines are a good source of it.
Looking at some of the cr*p our police have to put up with on the streets today, I reckon a bit of the 'Finnish' policing techniques would go a long way to making certain sections of the community a little less likely to run amok as they seem to do these days.
The problem is that those who carry knives offensively will continue to do so for their own reasons whilst 'normal' citizens are curtailed and hounded as in the aforementioned post. The usual government 'blunt instrument' (no pun intended) application of the law has prevailed and unfortunately, officers on the ground have to apply it and they have lost a lot of respect because of it.
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Well I'm just about 6 foot never been arrested for being too tall, nor has my 6 foot 7 mate.
I've carried a Swiss army knife for many years and never even been searched.
It would be interesting to know how many normal Mayhemers have been arrested for carrying a pen knife, or are these cases flights of fancy from the Daily Mail....
ps....According to QI if you only have one arm, it's Ok to take a flick knife, into the USA
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Well, all the cases I quoted can be referenced - here is the 'tall' one.... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/15/tall_photographers/
The point I am trying to make is that so long as you stay out of the way of the police you will be fine - draw their attention in any way, either by being out of the ordinary or just being there when they're feeling stroppy, and you will no longer find that the law protects you. Something (or maybe nothing) will be made up to justify arresting you, hauling you down to the station, fingerprinting, DNAing you then locking you up.
That is why i suggested that Martin stay clear of carrying a penknife on his keychain. All he needs is a bored store security guard to notice it, call the police support, and his whole day could be ruined....
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For what it's worth, to anyone who carries a pen/pocket knife, my advice would be to carry on doing so, and to hell (literally) with any jumped-up berk trying to tell you otherwise. To hell with the politically-correct brigade, to hell with bent officials and to hell should go any man who succumbs to these so-called 'safety laws'.
As much as I hate to admit it, I had a bit of a run-in with some gobby dude at San Francisco airport who tried to confiscate my two-inch pocket knife. The Yanks are notorious for their usual boistrous attitude, and that day was no exception. It was around the time of the 9/11 fiasco and security was even more piddling than usual. They let me into their country with the blade in my pocket, and there was no way I was leaving without it. Kicked up a right old fuss until they'd seen some good old-fashioned British sense. Back at Heathrow I had no trouble whatsoever.
You know it, I know it and just about every other man and his dog know it; the whole Big Brother scene is now just a total joke to most every level-headed Brit. We'd all end a right bunch of bum lickers if we were to jump to their every stupid command.
Martin, just continue carrying that blade in your pocket like you've been doing for Gawd knows how many years... and to damnation with any prat trying to bully you into giving up what is rightly your very own choice anyway.
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On a lighter note, living in Thailand we see the vagaries of policing on nearly a day-to-day basis.
A couple of years ago I was driving my motor-scooter with my pet poodle in the front basket - a very common scene over here - when "Peep". :police:
I pulled over and the policeman, laughing his head off, explained "Your dog is not wearing a helmet". %% Any excuse to pull-over a foreigner, because we are usually an easy touch for a fine.
Unfortunately for me, the tax disc had expired and that cost me a fifteen-quid fine. Fortunately, here they don't bother to record all your details as a criminal! Just fine-and-forget.
Geoff
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"....my advice would be to carry on doing so, and to hell (literally) with any jumped-up berk trying to tell you otherwise. To hell with the politically-correct brigade, to hell with bent officials and to hell should go any man who succumbs to these so-called 'safety laws'..."
I strongly support and applaud these sentiments, but suggest that you do not try to put them into practice in the South-East, and particularly not in London....
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https://www.askthe.police.uk/Content/Q337.htm?letter=K
This is supposed to be the official stance
:police: :police: :police: :police:
Ned
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I was going through the body scanner at St Pancras before getting on a Eurostar to Brussells in March and emptied my pockets on the plastic tray as requested. Amongst the fluff and small change was my Swiss army pen-knife. The guard walks over towards me and begins to look interested, and I only then remembered that I'd meant to leave it at home to avoid this very scenario. All I could think to do was to point to the luggage label on my nearby suitcase and say, 'But look, I'm going to Switzerland, and if I don't take this old one I'll be tempted to buy a bigger new one and bring that back instead.'
He paused, nodded, smiled and waved me through. :police:
Geoff
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" I understand it is now illegal to sell grey squirrels,
You can catch and sell grey squirrels but you cannot release them back into the wild unless you have a licence (you used to have to kill them but they have changed the law). They are very tasty and you can buy traps on ebay.
It is also illegal to release American red clawed crayfish back into the wild (also very tasty). You can catch them in rivers on a single line if you have a rod licence, many anglers catch them by accident, but if you want to use a crayfish "pot" (available from tackle shops) you have to have a (free) licence from the environment agency.
If it moves, eat it, but don't tell Wendy.
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I always try to remember to put my keyring knife into the hold luggage when flying. No problem then.
Colin
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A German friend of mine gave me a Muntser cheese once when we were over there. It had come out of his fridge and I, being English and in complete ignorance accepted it gracefully. He smiled a lot as he helped me pack it, it was a little whiffy but he said they were like that but that I would enjoy it.
We got to the airport check in, by this time my baggage was so high it could have flown home on it's own. He was grinning from ear to ear, the Swiss check in girl jokingly said " your aftershave aint cutting it Mr C". My Deutsche mate was almost apoplectic at this point, I called him a bast**d, we all said our goodbye's etc and swmbo and me boarded the plane.
As we came through customs in UK I saw a large sign telling me "no soft cheeses" among the other forbidden items.
The bag was by this time whistling and looked decidedly swollen to my eyes and I reckoned anyone opening that zip would pay dearly.... along with the rest of the customs staff and passengers... this was indeed a 'dirty bomb'!
I walked past a custom official, as I passed, probably looking guilty as sin, I saw his head swing round and he fixed me with his gaze. Amazingly he didn't stop me to search my baggage.... I wonder why. %)
To this day, I believe that bloke knew exactly what I'd got in there but I expect he had come across this before and once he had experienced the process of confiscation he had probably vowed never to stop anyone with a bag smelling that bad. {-)
As a sub note, despite the filthy disgusting odour, I was determined to taste this 'thing' just so I could honestly say I had done so.... it was absolutely foul, it tasted exactly like it smelled.
If the Luftwaffe had loaded this cheese into their 500kg bombs and dropped them on London it would have been game over for us as we would have deserted in droves to the counrtyside... upwind of London!!
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BTW, re the shotgun killings in todays awful news , kind of makes the penknife carrying citizen arrest all seem a little distant and pathetic.
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Just before I retired I was flying out to West Africa to help out a new Master and show him some of the tricks of the trade (Marine Survey Work) the Catering Super ask me if i minded hand carring out a small parcel of ships stores intransit On asking what the stores were he said it was a full 21 piece set of knives and cleavers for use in the ships galley To make a long story short I carried them through 5 airports (Incluting Heathrow Paris) and because I had a docket saying ships stores in transit no body said a word
and some of those knives were like small swords.....
Freebooter
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BTW, re the shotgun killings in today's awful news , kind of makes the penknife carrying citizen arrest all seem a little distant and pathetic.
Your right Sheerline. It's not often I shocked but I was today. :((
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Martin
Reading the whole article the knife is described by the police as a lock-knife
It is against the law to carry a knife which has the means to lock the blade
in an open position
Yours aye
Ned
All Clasp and pen knives have an "Over Centre" action which locks the blade in the open position. If they didn't then the blade would close when used, causing injury. The Law is stupid. I carried a pocket knife every day for nearly 40 years on the Building Sites here, and the blade on my knife was 4 inches long, and razor sharp. Ruler in right hand pocket, pencil behind my ear, knife in my left pocket, to sharpen pencil, cut trimming and whatever. Every Chippy in Cermany and Roofers too, have such a knife.
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A lock knife usually has a lever that needs to be depressed to release the blade to enable it to be folded, "ordinary" penknives can be folded by just pushing on the blunt side of the blade.
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Over here the General Rule is 4" and not able to open one handed.
KNIVES
The main restrictions on the types of knives in Canada are listed in Section III of Bill C68, which refers to
"prohibited weapons".
“Prohibited weapon" means:
(a) a knife that has a blade that opens automatically by gravity or centrifugal force or by hand pressure
applied to a button, spring or other device in or attached to the handle of the knife
This regulation bans switchblades and knives that you can flip open, i.e. by swinging/snapping the knife in
a circular motion. One-handed opening knives via holes in the blade, disks, studs etc., are not illegal.
There are no federal laws concerning the lengths of knives allowed. However there are many informal
"blade length rules" in Canada. These vary from 3" to 4" for folding knives in various areas around the
country, depending on what differentiates a pocket-knife from a fighting knife to the police. There are no
federal laws about knife materials, as well there are no formal laws on serrations, or dual edged blades.
http://www.theatreontario.org/theatresafety/downloads/v_firearms-blades.pdf
There are a number of places (Mostly Amusement Parts) that prohibit entry with any edged implement, you have to go through metal detectors. They also prohibit outside food or drink.
Regards,
Gerald.
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I have a knife on a keyring with a 25mm blade, it was taken from me when I went on the London Eye and returned to me as soon as I got off.
Alan
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I have a knife on a keyring with a 25mm blade, it was taken from me when I went on the London Eye and returned to me as soon as I got off.
Alan
That's how they keep their 100% record. The London Eye has NEVER been hijacked.