h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If the police stopped and searched you and found you with a Swiss army knife in your possession, could they have you for that?

Not if you were in the Swiss army..

Yes. There was a case recently where a guy was charged with carrying one of those Leatherman tools.

sorry not to answer the question first up; but if english laws are anything like the knife laws we've had for over a decade: yes.

here, legitimate use, such as trade tools, is a defence against any charges. note that having a defence won't prevent you being arrested or charged in the first instance. like laws pertaining to what is in your luggage on planes, the usual principle of burden of proof is reversed.

it is unlikely that any normal citizen over 30 will ever be charged with this stuff. this type of law is borrowed from military thinking. for example, historically soldiers were issued boots that were impossible to get to parade standard shine without resorting to what were non permitted measures such as candle wax etc. the idea wasn't to have soldiers with scruffy shoes, the idea was that at any given time any soldier would be liable to punishment for either not having shiny shoes OR having cheated to get them shiny. the americans would call this a catch 22.

and since almost everyone carries something that is possibly definable as a blade, be it long keys, comb handles, nail files..it means the police will have a good chance of obtaining a 'legit' reason to take you of the street should the need arise.

a fair indication of the scope of this stuff can be found in the information guides for what can be taken on board a plane these days.

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That would explain it.
I read in the paper the other day the figures for how many people had been arrested for carrying something that 'could be used as a blade', and I thought it sounded a bit all-encompassing. Your explanation would account for why that is.

I thought that a knife assumed capable of causing serious wounds was calculated on blade length. I remeber something about 4" ?. I hope that is the case 'cos i've just measured my Swiss Army Penknife and the main blade is only 2.75 ", and I always carry it in a pocket!

Novo

A blade of only a few millimetres is enough to slit someone's throat.

RF

Bit of glass'll do that. Probably have a good crack at it with your keys.

I dont know that keys would 'slit' as such.. Open, probably, slit, less so.

robyn. hahaha

i've had keys cut my pockets. i wouldn't want one in the throat that's for sure.

Then I'd be alarmed at the sharpness of one's keys, mine aren't that sharp!!!

Anyway, it was a flippant remark, not a particularly salient point for debate.

It does worry me that police now have official sanction to be totally unreasonable. Surely they could have instead found ways to expand what was definied as 'reasonable', rather than telling them to behave like expletives.

Here's the section from the Sunday Telegraph:

"In 1997 4,466 people were convicted of "having an article with a blade or point in a public place", a figure that rose to 7,654 by 2006."

Hmm. Being convicted for having an article with a point. So that could include a pencil.

Pesonally I agree with stop and search, but it should be for knives. It's true that a pencil could be used as an offensive weapon, but then so can your bare hands.

It does sound like a way of allowing the police to arrest anyone they want on the merest of pretexts, as Antigravitas suggests.

Yeah, but there's a distinction between what the police can do, and what your average bobby is likely to do.

I used to live in a rough area of Manchester where there is a lot of knife crime and I got stopped and searched when I was on my way home from a diving shop. In my bag I had, amongst other things, a diving knife in its sheath.

The officer saw it, saw that it was sheathed and that I had other diving stuff and just let me go. If you've got a reasonable reason to carry a knife I'd imagine you'd be fine.

Yeah. Probably.
But then this is a country where people get fined hundreds of pounds for putting their recycling in the wrong bin.

In Britain we've had 28 teens killed so far in 2008 (five months). How does this compare to other countries? Are things much worse here than in France, Germany, Spain, the USA or Australia?

in the same way that glaziers and plumbers don't usually get nicked for 'going equipped'.

had you decided to give your bobbies a mouthful for whatever reason tho, they had a nice tidy reason to nick you right there in your shopping bag.

As an aside, the definition of a 'knife' in the Knives Act 1997 is : an instrument which has a blade or is sharply pointed.

So, if you are carrying a fork, you are apparently also carrying a knife. Handy eh? It'll certainly cut down the weight on a camping trip.

of the world unite against the Knork invasion!!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7421534.stm

It seems the Scots are much more violent than the English or Welsh:


"Knife crime levels in Scotland are 3.5 times higher than in England or Wales

Scotland has a homicide rate of 5.3 per 100,000 in the 10-to-29 age group, which compares with one per 100,000 in England and Wales "