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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 25, 2025

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On the question of weaponry, it bears repeating that it is illegal in Scotland to carry anything that even vaguely resembles a weapon for self-defense. For the Americans in the audience, this is not Texas.

While carrying a gun openly on your hip is a sufficiently mundane sight here as to prompt no questions(or perhaps merely a harbinger of an hour long political conversation with no polite avenues for escape), carrying an axe will prompt questions- probably more in the vein of 'So, you heading to an SCA meeting?' or excited ten year old boys asking 'Can I see it?' than law enforcement relevant ones, but still. I believe there's also still a select list of weapons that are flat banned from carrying(including brass knuckles, switchblades, and sword canes- you can open carry a katana but not a 'concealable' blade). Holding a weapon in your hand is also illegal without very good reason, unless it's a polearm. And tweens don't get to carry weapons, you have to be a legal adult(either 18 or 21 depending). What this girl did would be illegal and unusual here- Florida man story. She could've probably gotten away with pulling a pocketknife or even a filleting knife, though. Technically illegal but no one thinks it's particularly serious.

flat banned from carrying(including brass knuckles, switchblades

Those are legal now in Texas since 2019 and 2013, respectively.

But not sword canes?!

Nope, those are legal now too. Just can't take em into bars, schools, or government buildings. They were illegal pre 5.5 inch knife ban reversal though.

The one thing I will say is that it's quite possible in Texas that if the weapons were being used to prevent a more serious crime (which seems to be in dispute in this case), the potential illegal weapons charges would be allowed to slide.

Probably, yeah, but teenagers from lower class backgrounds facing potentially serious charges aren't exactly reliable witnesses.