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Notes -
Britain Knives thread
— Tibullus (c. 55 BC – 19 BC)
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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:
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?
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.
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