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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   35173 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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Britain Knives thread

Who was it that first forged the deadly blade? of rugged steel his savage soul was made.

— Tibullus (c. 55 BC – 19 BC)

.

Below /u/incognitomaorach has a great thread about violence that eruptted in the UK between Muslim and Hindu cricket fans, ut in the middle he mentioned this:

Videos of some of the men having knives (all too common in the UK now) also circulated.

In North America there's a mocking parody of the UK that live in jokes and memes, that after banning guns they started banning knives leading to lots of joking "OI you got a loisence for dat ther potata peeler" or picking up a stone for skipping only for the bobbies to materialize and taze you because the angle of the stone was too sharp.

But every so often you see clips from UK media or here a story or see an interview of a worried middle aged woman, and start to wonder if it is a joke...

I'm a Canadian firearms enthusiast and something of an outdoorsman, and I'm tickled and a little horrified at the idea that a knife, a basic tool with archeological evidence dating back literally millions of years to pre-hominid times (Who first forged the deadly blade? They called him Oook), could be "all too common"

the knife is next to opposable thumbs in the things that make one human... i'm genuinely curious about this attitude... did he mean "men who'd openly draw blades are all too common now", to be fair such men have quite a storied history in the UK: they were called gentry. Or did he actually mean the physical knives themselves are too common?

In Canada folding knives, including the scary looking scythe style fighting knives, are sold at convenience stores and all kinds of mall ninja weapons (real sharpened steel) are for sale at most toy and game stores.... often in goofy coloured finishes so that tweens and early teens can blow their allowances on them and feel cool for a few minutes. Parents give kids knives for Christmas. I remember summer camp we were all just given folding knives (cheap ones we were expected to keep) because it was a camping camp and we were expected to make shelter and survive in the woods. Its normal in most small towns and even most cities for guys who are blue collar ect. to wear big knives visibly on their belts, and maybe 20-40% of men and women have a pocket knife or something comparable on them at basically all times.

In Britain is there a real serious attitude that people should just not have knives...or could be denied them? Like not memes, and shitposts, but for real?

British Mottizens is this a real attitude?

What really enrages me is that there's no "loicense" you can get to carry a knife in the UK. I understand they want to disarm the young and violent underclass, but why not have a "may issue" license? You go to your local police; they take a look at you and see you're not a yobster, you get to carry your Benchmade 940 or ZT 0450 or CRK Mnandi around the town.

they take a look at you and see you're not a yobster

...This is exactly how it works in practice, minus needing a license of any sort (Gasp! An American joke being both unfunny AND inaccurate?!)

Yoofs are the only people who will be stopped and searched for knives 99% of the time, and no policeman is going to care if someone in overalls and wearing tough gloves is carrying a knife around on their belt.

deleted

It's certainly better than them being forced to uselessly stop and search Doris, 83, for the sake of equality or whatever, just so the stats look nice and even. Yes, the police know who tend to commit more crimes in a given area. Yes, they should focus their efforts on those people. What gives? This community would agree with targeted policing any other day of the week, but because it's a chance to bleat "Britain bad" it suddenly does a 180?

This community would agree with targeted policing any other day of the week

Would it, though? I think this community more broadly takes the stance of "yes, blacks do more crimes than whites and this should not be papered over; no, this doesn't mean we want blacks to be constantly under the thumb of police, and the problems blacks face have upstream solutions."

Does that mean you don't think allocating police resources towards where crimes actually happen is a good idea, then? In favour of having just as many beat police walking around Shady Acres Retirement Village as patrolling Lower Stab End, Scumville? You don't think that would be a waste of police time and effort?

For my money, increased police presence should be exactly the response to crime being concentrated in one area or among one population.

I'm not talking about a tradie walking around with a utility knife. I'm talking about someone carrying a pocket knife (with a lock, of course, because fuck slipjoints) because it always comes in handy.

between Muslim and Hindu cricket fans

And at least one Sikh was reported attacked, too.

Their kirpan appears to remain exempt from UK bans, even in the latest passed bill. So there's some respect for tradition there; at least, a half-millennium-old tradition with staunch British defenders is still respected, even if a millennium-old tradition without is not ... which actually seems like a sensible distinction, even if it's sad to notice.

The jerkass culture warrior in me often wants to insist that we no longer use the word "Anglo-Saxon" to refer to the UK portion of that ethnicity, but replace it with something to better reflect that so many of the Seaxe people's descendants can no longer carry a Seax to pull out for would-be robbers. I'd also propose suggested replacement names, but I fear even apophasis is close to crossing a too-jerkass-for-The-Motte line...

The Kirpan is an interesting one- I'm sure there is probably a story there about the British Empire's unique relationship with the Sikhs, and consequently modern attitudes toward them. For those who don't know, Sikhs were given privileged positions in the Raj and used as allies and military enforcers, as they had common ground against their previous Mughal and Hindu overlords. Factors such as monotheism may also come into it. I distinctly remember in school being taught a lot about Sikhism in religious studies, comparatively much more than Hinduism or Islam or Buddhism.

deleted

In Britain is there a real serious attitude that people should just not have knives...or could be denied them? Like not memes, and shitposts, but for real?

British Mottizens is this a real attitude?

No.

Contrary to @BurdensomeCount there is no knife license. The law is that you can carry a <3" non-locking pocket knife anywhere any time for any reason (probably some caveats around airports and the like, or other non-public spaces) and at any age, but under 18s can't purchase "most" of them (effectively all). For all other knives you just need a good reason to carry a bigger knife (self defence/community defence isn't a good enough reason).

See https://www.gov.uk/buying-carrying-knives

>It’s illegal to use any knife or weapon in a threatening way

Nobody is worried about cub scouts in the woods having a dangerous blade while they're making a camp fire. Those kids are within the law to carry a 2' long fixed blade if they're only using it to clear brush. And if you're over 18 you can, like a Canadian at a truck stop, also go into an military surplus catering and garden supply shop and pick out a sweet 24" rainbow punisher medieval zombie joint cleaver to prune your hedges with and the old bill can't stop you.

For some contrast, consider that the people in the land of the free who like to meme about oi yer loicense often aren't allowed to drink a beer in the park, or cross the road away from a crosswalk, or provide hairdressing services without a permit, or open up a shop in their house, or own the kind of guns and explosives that the state would rather have a monopoly on. Different societies arrange themselves in different ways and make different trade-offs.

Adults running around city streets with knives drawn is an undeniable problem and if them being arrested for it means I'm also not allowed to run around with the streets with a knife drawn or routinely carry an 8" chef's knife stashed down my trousers then I guess I'm okay with that.

3'' is tiny though. I have a bigger "knife" in my briefcase as a white collar worker. That being a letter opener.

It is tiny, but if you need something bigger then you have a lawful justification for using something bigger. That said, opening paper envelopes probably won't cut it.

Contrary to @BurdensomeCount there is no knife license

Yeah, that bit was just a joke, I even called it a "loicence". We do have a TV loicence though that the Tories want to scrap (no joke). Plus no pepper spray allowed either and the Skunk Bike Lock which spray would be thieves with a noxious liquid if they attempt to cut it is also illegal.

Self defence laws in general are a joke in bongland. It makes me understand the allure of gated communities as they allow you to offload the dirty work and liability of handling nasty people onto paid security guards.

The TV licence system is used – and hated – in many other countries (Wikipedia has a detailed list). Japan even has a single-issue party dedicated to abolishing the licence fee.

The licence fee is effectively a regressive tax (which is bad) with its own enforcement bureaucracy (which is inefficient (though speculation about the existence of the alleged detection vans is amusing)). IMO, it should just be scrapped and replaced with a grant funded from general taxation.

@5852a

I thought about addressing that but felt I should stay on-topic. The loicense meme has nothing to do with knives and is entirely about the funding structure for the public broadcaster, it just gets used as fuel for shitposting because that's what the internet does. "Do you have a loicense to post UK memes? Do you have a loicense to ask if I have a loicense?" etc.

I'm not sure what the full extent of alternatives to TV licensing might be. I assume the discretionary licensing format was chosen as a preference to either advertising or imposing a universal tax and was introduced at a time when the BBC was the only broadcaster offering broadcasts. Again, trade-offs. Some countries choose advertising, some subscription, some a license, some a tax, and none of them are perfect solutions. The fact that attacks on TV licensing aren't advocating for a tax offers some suggestion of whose agenda is being advanced.

Link to original discussion.

This died down relatively quickly, but within a few days, Hindus began sharing videos on WhatsApp of gangs of men attacking property and people in Hindu areas of the city. Some flags were taken down (as far as I can tell, orange Hindutva/BJP-type flags). Videos of some of the men having knives (all too common in the UK now) also circulated. The implication was this was Muslim men attacking the Hindu community.

I think it's safe to read @incognitomaorach as talking about gangs of young, potentially Muslim men visibly carrying knives while committing crimes. In which case, yes, it's a real serious attitude that they shouldn't be allowed such. This isn't really different from a reflexive suburban fear of gangs in America: why can't the government just take away the guns? The bad people are using them!

"The Romans thought it was based" is not, on its own, a strong argument. We're not Romans in culture or economy. The UK is much more urban than Canada, and for an urban service worker or a housewife the personal cost of restricting knives is next to nil. Whenever a high profile stabbing or spot of unrest comes up, then, why not push the bar?

Really, the analogy to American gun politics is apt. Anti-X sentiment is driven by rare events with strong emotional valence. I'm sure that, should Canada experience a rash of urban

X crimes, regulators would work backwards to talk about toxic X culture and banning toy X. They'd generalize from their own lack of necessity to ask why anyone needs an X with an 8-inch [barrel/blade] and tactical grip. Meanwhile the main users out in small towns and the like would whine about historical precedent and personal liberties because the object level, practical uses are apparently an acceptable casualty.

As long as the costs of restricting X are paid by a separate group, it's going to be on the table.

It seems that the "XXX control" movements share a near pathological need to ignore the criminals and focus on the implement they happen to be using at that time. I don't know how to fix this, but mocking knife control is at least as productive as taking it seriously.

You don’t even need to ignore the criminals to get this behavior. Look at airport security—it targets the perpetrators pretty hard with no-fly lists, criminal penalties and so on. But the far more visible policy is the one that messes with everyone’s stuff.

Knife control isn’t inherently any stupider than lots of laws. Revoking a license for drunk driving is really inconveniencing the (former) driver, and it can’t stop him from getting in a car...just make it really unappealing and costly. The U.K. is pretty light on guns, and it’s not impossible they could impose similar barriers for knives. If so, for what it’s worth, it probably would reduce the number of football-hooligan-hate-crime-knifings. Whether that is a number worth the cost...well, I’ll leave that to the Brits to decide.

You don’t even need to ignore the criminals to get this behavior. Look at airport security—it targets the perpetrators pretty hard with no-fly lists, criminal penalties and so on. But the far more visible policy is the one that messes with everyone’s stuff.

Yes, and the TSA is generally retarded and ineffectual. Just like anti-knife policies.

Knife control isn’t inherently any stupider than lots of laws.

No, it is, because in practice it targets people ignorant of the law or outside the scope of the problem actually being addressed.

Revoking a license for drunk driving is really inconveniencing the (former) driver, and it can’t stop him from getting in a car...just make it really unappealing and costly.

This argument would make sense if we never punished drunk drivers who hit people, but always punished drunk drivers who don't hit people, which is how most "XXX control" laws work.

The U.K. is pretty light on guns, and it’s not impossible they could impose similar barriers for knives. If so, for what it’s worth, it probably would reduce the number of football-hooligan-hate-crime-knifings. Whether that is a number worth the cost...well, I’ll leave that to the Brits to decide.

Reducing the number of football hooligan stabbings from zero to super zero doesn't seem like all that good of a goal for me. At best its trading 100 false arrests for one pre-emptive hooligan stabber. The opposite of a rational and fair justice system.

Not British, but when people used knives, then it was common to have penknives and see them for sale, and they were unremarkable when I was growing up.

People don't use knives that commonly now, unless they are indeed going out to (1) hunt/fish (2) doing some kind of manual labour (3) gonna cut a bitch.

And (3) is the concern, because a lot of people from kids to the kind of lovely upstanding young gentlemen who are a credit to the community and their names totally unknown to the police are now going around with knives to use them not for recreation or work purposes (not unless you count 'being a mugger/getting into a drunken brawl/you haz been dissed and mus' uphold your honour!' as recreational).

If these types could get their hands on guns, they'd be shooting each other. Until then, it's knives.

People don't use knives that commonly now

This seems odd to me. I'm mostly an office worker, but I carry a pocket knife on a routine basis. I don't use it every day, but it's such a massively versatile tool, I'd feel neutered without it.

I'm not from Britain, but to me the intended meaning was clearly "it is now all too common that they go out armed with knives with the intent of using them on humans." Maybe in your world everything is about constant conflict and you obviously need weapons with you but for people who have lived their lives in general stability where you could mostly trust the people you meet in your town in your evening stroll, for them the idea that people are out there at night with knives intended against humans is a definite step backwards, further from ideal society. If your philosophy is "every man must fight for his foothold in this universe", I can see how the desire for knifelessness is repulsive.

Also, there's no clear boundary between knives and swords. And I for sure don't want people walking about carrying samurai swords, machetes or katanas in the streets. Some kind of blade length restriction seems good.

There are no blade length restrictions in California, and yet I've never seen anyone walk around with a sword or even an impractically large knife. Even when I was threatened by people with knives, the blades weren't especially long. It just doesn't seem to be an issue in practice

Maybe because the sort of people who would carry swords rather carry guns in the US, as they are easily available.

a definite step backwards, further from ideal society.

It's a definite step backwards in one particularly constrained sense. For two societies with "willingness to carry knives as a function of threat level" fixed while "threat level" can vary (the distinction you might see if you looked at correlations between similar cultures without knife restrictions), certainly more willingness to carry knives means there must be more threats and more danger and so is further from ideal. But, for two societies with "threat level" fixed while "ability to carry knives" varies (the distinction you see when you're able to decide on knife laws for the law-abiding but you can't so easily reduce criminality), being unable to defend yourself increases the danger from every threat, whereas more knife carrying means there's more deterrence and less repeat offense and so is closer to ideal.

Every now and then the idea is floated that many of our problems can be traced to STEM nerds who won't study enough humanities, but personally I'd also feel safer about our political trajectory if I knew our humanities-nerd overlords all had had an intuitive understanding of partial derivatives with different constrained variables...

Lacking that, any other analogy feels more hand-wavy. Would a society with more people getting chemotherapy be a step forwards or a step backwards? It's impossible to say without more information - it might be a higher incidence of cancer, or it might be the same population of cancer victims but more of them getting treated. But even if we've been traveling down the "more cancer, less ideal" direction on that manifold, even if we're right to be saddened by the expanding cancer wards, to thereby conclude that we should crack down on those damn oncologists would still be a big mistake.

I get what you mean. Knives on the streets may also be considered an effect, not a cause of a bad society and so on. Perhaps just brute force banning them isn't the right course of action towards a nicer trustful society where people don't (feel the need to) carry knives.

(This btw feels similar to the often-had discussion on whether something is victim blaming, should women wear skimpy clothes in dark alleys etc.)

So yeah you can spin this to seem as complex as you want, but my comment was specifically an answer to another comment, whose author seemingly couldn't imagine why someone would think it's bad that it's becoming "all too common" that people carry knives to the streets, and surely this must mean that they want to ban the sale of knives or ban people from using them at home or for camping etc.

Also, only thought experiments can keep one thing fixed. In real life it's not like one thing is ever fixed (by who?) and others are left to vary. Everything tends to change and things are interconnected in complicated, loopy causal networks.

This is what I intended!

Yeah, you need a loicence for knives and carrying a big knife on you in public without having a good reason can lead to confiscation and arrest. Kitchen knives and the like are fine if you e.g. are going on a barbecue, nobody is going to stop you for carrying a 24 piece cutlery set that has 6 knives in it, but it's quite unlikely someone would be carrying a machete for peaceful reasons, and besides, even if you got stopped for a machete and you had a good reason and you don't look like a violent type you can just explain to the police officer who will let you go (e.g. cutting down some bushes).

And then there's the old man convicted for carrying a Swiss Army Knife. What a "reasonable excuse" is for having a knife is entirely up to the courts and they've been known to decide that "My job is opening boxes" is not a reasonable excuse for having a utility knife in one's car, because you could just keep the knife at work.

Not British anymore, but last time I was there the "kitchen knife ban" proposal had escalated from "lone judges and academics" to "respectable position of the church/quango blob" in the same way that "banning assault rifles" is the proper and correct opinion of anyone who matters in the US.

So I expect it'll happen soon. Banning meat and fish is on the same list of Proper Opinions, and you don't need pointy knives to eat bugs out of microwaved ration packets.

In Britain is there a real serious attitude that people should just not have knives...or could be denied them? Like not memes, and shitposts, but for real?

The steelman is that Britain (and Massachusetts, and New York, and Philadelphia) separates having knives from carrying knives: where the former is allowed (with a whole bunch of obscure rules that are easy to violate and have no sane rationale), the latter is prohibited. The distinction is not primarily the weapon, but treating the blade as a weapon, not just in use but in intent. Britpackers aren't automatically in trouble should they pick up a breadknife -- indeed, you'll get one in a napkin roll with your katsu chicken sandwich at the pub -- it's when they act as though this is a tool to harm other humans (or in some cases, animals), that this becomes an act which can throw you into the slammer. You're stuck accepting a bobby's or judge's interpretation for where this line actually falls, but welcome to the UK.

((Though these rules are prone to change; what style of knife you can buy in the local shop or would receive in a napkin roll isn't some law of physics.))

In the United Kingdom, this goes under the framework of "good reason", for reasons that a lot of US people following Bruen will find hilarious. But Canada is in a similar boat, here:

Anything other than the above. There are no limits on length. BUT, and this is a big but, the knife you carry must only be used as a tool (a.k.a. utility knife, hunting knife WHEN HUNTING, etc.). As stated above it do not conceal or have the intent to cause harm; this includes self defense!

This law is about intent. This means if you’re caught with a knife that’s concealed on your person while in a location you don’t require a knife to be used as a tool, you may be in for a bad time.

Example, walking through a dark alley at night with a utility knife in your pocket for protection sounds like a good idea. However if an officer of the law stops you and finds it, they can easily conclude there is no other reason for you to have it except for the intent to cause harm to another person.

And for certain frameworks of that whole "state as monopoly on lethal force", this kinda makes sense. Self-defense is permitted in both countries in some circumstances, but that doesn't require the state allow people to go out prepared to survive a fight. After all, they could just abandon the public streets if they absolutely knew those threats existed, and shouldn't need weapons if those threats don't.

It's just an absolutely appalling conclusion, to my norms, not a wrong one.

In Britain is there a real serious attitude that people should just not have knives...or could be denied them? Like not memes, and shitposts, but for real?

British Mottizens is this a real attitude?

No.

The idea is that there's no legitimate reason for a teen/20-something and their mates to all be carrying one around with them in a pack. Tradies are fine. Yoofs are not. It's extremely easy to know which is which.

This is ridiculous for me. Not UK resident, but I got my first small folding knife when I was maybe 6 and I was given knives to do stuff by adults even before then. It was part of the ritual to get your own knife from your dad for your birthday, it was source of great pride and acknowledgement of responsibility of kids. Having a knife was seen as one of the hallmarks of boyhood/girlhood. I do not remember any type of "knife crimes", quite to the contrary it was a step on the ladder for kids to mature. Learning how to handle knives was commonplace - one did not have to hide the ownership of knife, self-teaching oneself in secret - which would exactly be the source of injuries.

Knife is incredibly useful for all types of things: making stuff from wood, serving as scissors to cut rope when you construct anything, when you gather some type of fruit or shrooms and myriad of other things. I carry knives with me very often, I have multiple of them in various places such as a car or work, etc. And it is not only me but also my wife.

This emasculation of society in the name of evermarching safetyism is starting to piss me off big time.

Were you and your pals going around stabbing people? That, unhappily, is the difference today. Back in my own dinosaur youth, penknives etc. were normal, and a boy having one wasn't remarkable.

Today, the kinds of kids in towns (and this is not a racial angle, you have plenty of the same in majority/all white areas) who go around with knives are not going to a Boy Scout jamboree where they will be using the knife to show off their woodsmanship. They are heading out to harm somebody, be that rival gangs, other feral kids like themselves, or ordinary people just walking past them on the street.

Sure, even more effective "solution" would be to have forced curfew for everybody under 18 so they can only go out under adult supervision. I also strongly suspect that those "feral" gangster kids will be the ones who won't care about bans, ending up in juvenile detention centers for possessing forbidden item. Of course I am not surprised, the instinct is to immediately go for draconic control measures at least to look as if we are "doing something" seems to be the first idea nowadays, ignoring all unintended consequences.

See, if it were just ordinary kids going around with pocketknives, nobody would care. But it is precisely these kinds of kids who are going to end up in gangs and are going to end up in jail that are doing it, hence the concern (and not just kids, older guys too).

The UK has gun crime, but to a lesser extent. Knife crime is its version of gun crime. In the US, these kids would have some kind of cheap, crappy gun and wouldn't bother with knives. In the UK, while cheap, crappy guns for criminals are becoming much more available, they're still not as common. This is why the plod wear stab vests, not bullet-proof vests:

For many in the Police, stab proof vests will be the most basic protective equipment required. This is not because they are commonly used, but because they are the most common weapon available. Unlike elsewhere in the world, firearms are very rare in the UK and the majority of Officers are unlikely to face firearms. However, there are sadly a number of instances over the past several decades of Officers being killed with firearms, and even though crimes involving firearms make up only 0.2% of all recorded crime, the threat still remains, and some may wish to have protection against firearms. For some branches of the Police, a bullet proof vest is not only recommended but vital; Armed Response Units and other Firearms Officers are deployed into the most dangerous situations where firearms are often likely to be faced. For these Officers, a bullet proof vest is absolutely necessary.

Stab proof vests utilise the same materials as bullet proof vests- Kevlar or Dyneema- because of their extremely high strength-to-weight ratio. However, while Kevlar vests ‘traps’ bullets in its strong fibres, dispersing its energy and slowing it to a stop, they cannot stop knives and edged weapons in the same way. Weapons with an edge cut through these protective fibres, rendering the vest useless. Stab proof vests therefore incorporate either chainmail or laminate coating in addition to Kevlar to help stop a knife from penetrating. This is ideal for Officers who, if facing a weapon, will most likely encounter a knife or similar weapon. Knives were over three times as prolific as firearms in recorded crime, and a stab proof vest (often called a knife-resistant vest) is a vital piece of equipment for Officers.

You're thinking of the situation "well when I was a kid, I routinely carried a knife because this was a normal part of life" and maybe even today you still do. That's why this seems odd to you. You have to change to the mindset of "well when I was a kid, I was not routinely selling drugs, shoplifting, assaulting people, and getting involved in robberies which is why I carried a knife".

So you'd surrender basic human freedom in the name of stopping degenerates from hurting eachother?

this ius the difference in attitude. In north America the thought is "yep those kinds of people are going to do that" finding some legal emasculation of the whole of society so that even the most bad faith degenerates can't hurt themselves is completely outside the scope of discussion.

Hell the trend in north america is more towards legalizing vastly more, and normalizing the ownership of larger weapons. Weed, psychedelics... you fry your brain its on you.

Knife is incredibly useful for all types of things: making stuff from wood, serving as scissors to cut rope when you construct anything, when you gather some type of fruit or shrooms and myriad of other things. I carry knives with me very often, I have multiple of them in various places such as a car or work, etc. And it is not only me but also my wife.

Maybe this is just my domestication showing, but here in Ireland (very similar to the UK) I have almost never needed a knife for anything outside the kitchen. I might get a Swiss Army knife today because they're cool, but I'll probably just use it as a can opener.

Yeah I'll be honest, that tripped me up too. I didn't grow up in some Famous Five dimension where we made secret bases or whittled our own dildos or whatever. And I suspect we've only gotten further from that world as time has gone on.

Based off my limited interaction with the youth of today (my partner's nephews), the most likely consequence of gifting one of them a pocket knife would be that it was immediately plunged into the sofa or carpet. Kids these days are just feral. Nobody parents and they all have 100 mental illnesses. Best to keep them away from sharp things. And polite society.

They are immensely useful for making jury rig fixes for things. I end up with a bit of learned helplessness if I don't carry one for a bit.

Sure, it will depend on type of childhood one has. When I was a child it was normal to take bike around with my friends, play soccer or do some mischiefs like making slings, or climbing trees, making a "bunker" in bushes near railroad and so forth. That is why I am talking about emasculation, nowadays boys are probably expected to sit at home, doing homework or reading books and be docile enough when transported between piano lesson and Spanish lesson after school. Knife is a basic universal tool that can serve as scissors, saw, screwdriver, can opener and of course utensil. It is meant for anybody who likes to do some manual work assembling/disassembling stuff - a thing especially boys always liked to do and that is now demonized by certain class of overbearing people who want to enforce their lifestyle as some universal moral good. That is what pisses me off.

I had a similar childhood, just with more ramshackle bunkers I guess. I'm with you on the demonization of tools, and self-defence law here is woeful when it comes to carrying any kind of weapon.

Though here we have a real enough problem with gypsies fighting in the streets with garden tools (think Gangs of New York but much less stylish, I'm not joking) that you wouldn't be wrong to be wary of someone carrying one openly.

I am from Slovakia and there were enough Gypsies around. I had a "fistfight" with one when I was 8, which led me to getting bad marks for next two years until I transferred to next teachers.

There was also a mythic "Gypsy" weapon called "razor on aviation rubber", like from some Chinese martial art movie. The only thing that we had when we saw Gypsies was the protection of the group that knew what's what. It is hard to explain, but back in the days of 90ies Slovakia there was an ethos of what I can say as "Scout Movement" except it was much more organic. There was kid culture, we carried around the knives, we shared secrets where the best spots to hide are, we knew of cool places to do stuff. We were not like rats hiding in our nests - but we knew where to not fuck around and if you went to certain neighborhood you knew what was the proper thing to do with local kids.

It is hard to explain, but this knife ethos was part of it. We did not go to the "authorities" for each and every problem and there was acknowledgement from the other side - including Gypsies.

Many people say this, and you probably won't believe it because I didn't either, but until you get a pocket knife you don't realise how useful they are. They allow you to solve problems that beforehand it wouldn't have occurred to you to use a knife to solve.

Personally I used to carry a pocket knife all the time, and didn't find it that useful. And that was when I was a farm kid, with a lot more uses for a pocket knife than I have now. But I'm also just... almost never not at home. So when I do need a knife it's a case of "go get the knife from the knife place", not "oh shit I don't have one on me so I'm screwed".

I was thinking that might be the case. I guess I'll find out.

The modern nanny doesn't really care about raising the children, because they're not her children after all. It's enough for her to make sure the children can't hurt each other; it's not her role to teach them manners or responsibility.

Uh... your second sentence contradicts your first.

Teens carry knives in Canada. its normal at a highschool party "Hey anyone got a knife" and whole host of pocket knives come out.

The idea that you think there are categories of people you can deny an invention that's two million years old... even if they're with their friends and out of doors... that's incomprehensible to North Americans.

Let's be clear here: pocket knives are legal to carry in the UK, at any time, without any specific reason. I carry one myself, for such varied uses as cutting sticks for cricket stumps and opening mayo packets at Weatherspoons. The catch is that such knives must be no longer than three inches and must not lock. For day-to-day usage, this is perfectly sufficient, and if you need anything more heavy-duty it's likely that you're camping or otherwise obviously engaged in outdoorsmanship, which is a problem that solves itself since such activities would count as a valid justification were you to be stopped by a policeman.

I'm not sure how I feel about the UK's knife laws personally, but they do often get misrepresented, and their nuance is not often fully considered.

The catch is that such knives must be no longer than three inches and must not lock.

Man, that sucks. I haven't used a non-locking folding knife since I was maybe 10. The lock makes it so much safer to use.

Yeah, it's the part of the law I have the most problem with. I've nearly done myself serious damage a couple of times (ab)using non-locking knives.

There is no nuance in regulating the locking mechanism, as I specially have to look for knives without in the US.

It is there because people tend to like their fingers with skin and blood.

The catch is that such knives must be no longer than three inches and must not lock.

This is one of those areas where arguing the specifics of what knives are acceptable to the state seems beyond the point. I can definitely think of use cases where I would really prefer a knife to lock (my pocket of knife of choice is the Benchmade Bugout and I spread the gospel of its excellence to all), but again, this just isn't the point. I'm viscerally offended by the idea that there should be bureaucrats or legislators concerning themselves with the quality of the locking mechanism on a pocketknife. Click through the Benchmade link above and you'll find what is clearly not intended as some assault knife but has a 3.24 inch blade and a locking mechanism.

I just find it bizarre to find it totally normal for your government to tell what the acceptable specs on your pocketknife are. Accepting this as a reasonable thing is just entirely alien to me. I think this is exactly why I react so strongly to guys like Andrew Cuomo saying, "no one needs 10 rounds to kill a deer". It turns out these slopes are very slippery indeed and accepting that it's legitimate for the government to tell me what the appropriate magazine size is for hunting does seem to lead inexorably to having a system that determines whether a locking mechanism on a pocketknife is something I "need".

It's one of the things I find utterly contemptible about the UK and its people. The mongal horde will rape their daughters, pillage their cities, and pull down their idols. Hard times are coming.

Does it? Does thinking gang members in Detroit shouldn't walk around with guns mean I think that "people should just not have guns"?

They're free to use their knives in their own homes, of course, or at a place of (snicker) employment. But the balance of probability is that if they're carrying them around in a group on the streets, especially in a crime hotspot, they're up to no good and the knives will be taken. I mean, how gullible would you have to be? "No, I'm just carrying this six inch serrated knife in case I happen across any cake in a back alley or something"?

Intent is too ambiguous. Simply make attempting to stab people a crime and harshly prosecute people stabbers so the police don't need to use their mind reading powers to pre-emptively jail people who could potentially commit a crime.

Also, a serrated knife is a bad weapon to use on a person.

This is what I meant. CCTV/Mobile footage of someone running down a street with a 10inch blade out is now a pretty common occurrence.

including the scary looking scythe style fighting knives

This is called karambit, apparently. Had one in my collection long ago; passed it on to a nephew, who'll probably need it more in school. Supremely useless junk (all edge, no point – I'm tempted to say; alas, it has one). But intimidating. It was also technically legal but skirting the border of the law, where blades over 90mm and with a proper guard are deemed «cold weapons». There's a number of those criteria, much like with firearms in the US.

Regardless, as far as attitudes go, Canada looks better than expected.

Related: Transport Canada Permits Small Knives on Planes (2017) (TL;DR: knives shorter than 6 cm (2.3") are allowed on flights outside the US. This is the same rules as the EU has.)

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