I love how you're putting guns and knives into the same category here. They're actually a nice example for how a difference in quantity (deadliness) becomes a difference in quality. Which is why anyone can buy a knife pretty much anywhere in the world, while most of the "civilized" world puts heavy (heavy) constraints on who gets to carry fire arms. But I'm sure the countries that neither control who gets one nor require much training before they get it are doing juuuust fine. /s
> Which is why anyone can buy a knife pretty much anywhere in the world
Not quite true. I went to AUS a couple of years ago with a pocket knife, at one point I took it out to cut something and someone mentioned to me that a knife like that was illegal in AUS so I had to keep it hidden in the hotel the rest of the trip.
Some places ban knives based on the opening mechanism. E.g. from what I can tell the UK bans spring-assisted opening knives (switchblades in colloquial terms).
Honest question: Is "because sometimes I need to cut something" a "good reason." I routinely carry a small pocket knife with a 3" blade that folds up, and I use it very frequently. Would this be allowed in the UK?
Also from the site, one of the requirements is "are not lock knives (they do not have a button, spring or catch that you have to use to fold the knife)"
My pocket knife folds open and then catches, meaning I have to push a little metal tab out of the way to fold it back closed. This seems safer to me, since otherwise the blade might fold up on my fingers while I'm trying to use it. Would this be illegal in the UK?
I think those are legal, I think you've got it reversed. Knives that lack some kind of mechanism that locks the blade open are illegal (e.g. a butterfly knife).
Thinking about it, I think that section is to specifically ban butterfly knives. That's the only style of non-fixed blade knife I can think of that doesn't have a compliant locking mechanism.
I got one like that on my keychain too and while the personal at the airport measured the blade size, it was fine to take along for an international flight within the EU. I'm neither from the UK nor a lawyer through, and airport personal aren't the police, still hard to imagine that they'd ignore that if it was illegal.
That reasoning would make sense but the most server limits on firearms are mostly applied to the least commonly used weapons for murders. For instance more than twice the number of people get murdered by knives in the US than rifles (rather broad category). Unless you're talking about quantity of deadly use vs non deadly use
Regardless i think it doesn't make sense to have a legal gray zone where it's legal but you can still be sued about it. Either make it illegal or certain behaviors illegal and sue for that but arbitrary lawsuits are not the answer
> That reasoning would make sense but the most server limits on firearms are mostly applied to the least commonly used weapons for murders.
Well, yeah, if you consider the limits on rifles to be severe, why would you be surprised that they're used less for murder? If anything, that sounds like an argument that limits work and we should be limiting _more_ things
> For instance more than twice the number of people get murdered by knives in the US than rifles (rather broad category)
That's just cherry picking data. You're comparing the broadest possible category "knives" with a subset of another category -- rifles are a subset of knives.
You might note that certain categories of knives are regulated, and actually illegal in many states. Not all knives are the same. This is obvious. But your point ignores it.
> Which is why anyone can buy a knife pretty much anywhere in the world
Actually in the UK, you are not allowed to sell a knife of any kind to someone under 18 years of age (though Scotland allows 16 and 17 year olds to buy cutlery).
