It’s not enough for Canada to go off the deep end, the UK has to follow in suit. After all, it has to keep its edge in the battle for the most ridiculous ban legislation.
In its latest bout of scheduled lunacy, our elected overlords passed a motion to restrict the purchasing of knives to face-to-face transactions for private consumers amongst other interesting stipulations that I will break down point by point.
Sidenote; if you wish to see the breadth of bureaucratic stupidity, feel free to peruse the original – it’s just as comical without my added notes.
From the top –
The government will also make it a criminal offence to possess corrosive substances in a public place and publicly consult on extending stop and search powers to enable the police to search for and seize acid from people carrying it in public without good reason.
Makes sense in theory, but practically speaking, how do you enforce it? A lot of the time, thugs keep the acid in regular soft drink bottles, and with our dwindling police numbers, it’s not like stop and search has much of an impact. The whole acid attack business is truly horrific and the solution would be to keep these savages in the slammer in perpetuity.
An acid attack has a life-long impact on the victim and the perp should consequently deal with life-long consequences.
Onto the proposed changes in the UK’s knife laws…
The new Offensive Weapons Bill, which will be brought forward within weeks, would also make it illegal to possess certain offensive weapons like zombie knives and knuckle-dusters in private.
I really don’t know how many times this will have to be debunked before nosey-bodies in villages and bureaucrats in Westminster get it through their thick skulls. Banning a specific knife will have zero impact on crime.
Wtf even is a zombie knife you ask? Apparently if it looks scary, it’s a zombie knife and thus illegal.
Not to worry though, you can still purchase an 8 inch pointy-stabber-slicer-kitchen knife™ with no issues because it doesn’t have scary writing on the blade. I must be a criminal genius to have spotted this glaring loophole.
As for knuckle dusters – never met any one who ever carried one. Seems redundant, and practically speaking, any household tool will act as a superior force multiplier compared to a knuckleduster, as well as offering easier legal justification. Moving on –
Stopping knives being sent to residential addresses after they are bought online […]
Eugh.
Spyderco UK Pen Knife UKPK Folding UK-Legal EDC Knife – Amazon / Blade HQ
What in the hell were they thinking? Do these dingbats understand that one can simply walk to the kitchen and pick up a whole mishmash of deadly weapons?
The real concern here is what will happen to aficionados who collect shiny Spyderco’s and retailers like Heinnie who supply us? I suspect the long term viability of being a knife retailer in this country is about to be curtailed somewhat.
[…] updating the definition of a flick knife to reflect changing weapon designs […]
I have no idea what they mean by this, but it’s deeply worrying. Any knife is a flick knife if the pivot is loose enough.
I imagine flippers are going to be a no-go as opposed to merely existing in a legal grey area. I saw this coming and haven’t bought flippers for a while. They do mention that anything that aids in whipping the blade out constitutes a flick knife.
The current definition of flick knives in the Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959 is outdated and refers to the mechanism that activates the blade being in the handle. We will delete the reference to the switch blade mechanism being in the handle, as manufacturers now place the mechanism in a part of the knife that can be argued is part of the blade. This means the prohibition on the sale, manufacture and importing of flick knives cannot be circumvented through changes in their design.
Be very careful should you chose to import blades that have questionable design elements. Frankly, at this point I wouldn’t bother.
The new offence of possessing certain offensive weapons in private would ensure that in future where the police find a zombie knife, for example, in someone’s home they can arrest and charge the owner with this proposed offence and remove the offensive weapon from the owner.
My advice folks, is to de-scarify your more mundane blades with some Hello Kitty stickers and perhaps pink paracord.
Clearly logic has taken its leave and all the powers that be care about is aesthetics, so play along and remove scary writing from the blade. I recommend buffing or using cera-kote.
Spyderco Roadie Tiny Slip Joint Folding EDC Knife – Amazon / Blade HQ
In short, this is very, very grim. I imagine that this legislation will go through and be enforced as the country simply doesn’t have the appetite to fight back against egregious legislative overstepping and with the Home Office having defacto free reign over the state, one can easily imagine we are living in a sick and twisted parody.
Frankly folks, there are only so many times I can repeat, “It’s the people, not the tool!” until I asphyxiate on my own bile. At this point my faith in the administration has sunk to unheard levels of low and the only reason I update you on the state of British madness is to inform my UK based readers so that they can avoid getting cautioned by the Metropolitan Police, Inc., and also so readers overseas can bare witness to this madness and do whatever is in their power to stop it from happening in their own country.
Britain: It’s a cautionary tale. ™
From guns, to acid, to knives… What is next? Hatchet, hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches? Ban gasoline because you can make Molotov cocktails. Ban rocks, cricket bats, sticks. Let’s make it easy. Ban murder and assault.
Politicians feel the need to be seen as “doing something”. Doesn’t matter if its effective or not.
Well, let’s see, it’s illegal to assault – kill – rape – and commit so many other heinous acts, and there are laws for punishing those that do and yet it still happens.
Since there is no controlling human behavior in all of the people all of the time, bad stuff is going to happen. Risk is part of life, always has been, it helps the society evolve, hopefully for better and not worse.
Politicians need to show they deserve to be re-elected by doing something about bad events that occur around us – that action helps get them re-elected, at least they hope so. So what can they do? Pass laws and regulations that make owning whatever objects that were used by the bad actors illegal. Makes no difference – knives, guns, acid, explosives, whatever, if a bad actor uses it for evil, it must be evil to own it, so pass a law that makes owning the object illegal.
Makes perfect sense from their point of view!
A lot of people on both sides of the pond want the government to take care of them, and will give up a lot of freedom for the illusion of safety, and that’s all it is – an illusion!
Forget about whether it has any chance of really preventing anything. They can always say it’s working and how do you disprove that supposed fact – if incidents go up they say it’s prevented more from occurring – if it goes down they can say it’s working. It’s a win-win for them!
Good luck over there!!
No one has ever accused politicians of having common sense. ;)
It is a shame laws like this need to be passed. Like you stated the Kitchen knife block has deadlier and in some cases sharper knives available anytime you would want to cause someone harm. It is the individual’s mindset or lack of common moral sense that is causing these ludicrous laws to be passed impacting whole citizenry. You know as well as I do, bad people will get illegal knives if they want one. I’m glad personally I have enough blades to last my lifetime on hand and don’t need to buy any others.
You and me both my friend.
Britain appears to need another revolt worked for us in the americas
Britain had a revolt- it was awful and we went back to the monarchy. The clean break and constitutional rights that American’s got never happened here sadly.
I live in the U.S.A. I have seen in the news about the uptick in stabbings in the U.K. and the new laws being bandied about. Terrible news, on both fronts. I haven’t looked into the details of the individual stabbing cases. I am wondering how many of the weapons used in the stabbings would fall under the new restrictions? Granted, the new restrictions look very open ended and so vague that they can quite literally cover any knife that folds. Did authorities find that there were an inordinate amount of lime green stabbing weapons with the words “zombie” written on them at the crime scenes? Are flipper knives and assisted opening knives now the rage among perps who stab people? Were authorities able to link the knives to a retailer who shipped the knives into the country via the mail? Or, generally, would the weapons used not fall under any of those categories? I have no doubt that the weapons used do fall under the myriad of current laws that ban carrying just about anything with a blade. But would the new proposed laws, even if they could enforce them, have made a difference?
More and more people trust their officials to protect them from all things that can harm them, inconvenience them, or just make them uncomfortable. They will gladly give up all their rights and forgo their ability to protect themselves and their families for a false sense of safety. All the while putting themselves and their loved ones more at risk. Crazy times.
Maybe the U.K. should mandate that all citizens wear chain mail. You get the benefit of the reduced risk of stabbing injuries, all while looking snazzy. I hear retro fashion is in.
Not a bad idea with the chainmail ;) as for which knives will be declared illegal- who the hell knows at this point.
This is truly sad news. In one of John Farnam’s recent “quips,” he posted a note from a friend in the UK. It was a long piece, but this part stood out for me:
“Guns of all types (all illegal of course) are streaming into our country, by the boatload,
on any navigable waterway, and believe it or not, right through the capital’s main
waterway, the Thames!”
There’s no doubt that violent crime is up, and if bad guys can get AKs and other weapons (and drugs, and people, etc.) into the country, things look like they will end very badly.
Not to mention that making weapons isn’t all that difficult for someone who’s motivated. Knives, crossbows, and even AK-type firearms are fairly easy to construct and don’t even require a machine shop…and the people in charge in London have outlawed self-defense and are now attempting to remove anything that British subjects could use to defend themselves.
I once saw a patient come into the Emergency Room who had been feeling bad for a while, but didn’t come in until his skin had literally turned yellow from the infection his body was trying to fight. He didn’t realize when he checked in that he was already in a life-or-death struggle. I see the UK as being in a similar situation.
Bob
Certain types of violent crime are increasing in UK. For example, throwing acid as part of street robberies is a relatively new and horrific type of crime. Illegal firearms are certainly available and well connected professional criminals can probably get anything they want. However, the majority of criminals, such as street gangs, make do with low quality weapons, such as air guns or starting pistols that have been illegally modified to fire live rounds or DIY ammunition. These can be lethal but are typically cause less dangerous than genuine firearms. Regarding the Offensive Weapons Bill, I think it makes sense to put restrictions on carrying acid in public but stopping people from owning ‘zombie knives’ for decoration seems excessive. It is troubling that law abiding UK citizens are prohibited from carrying anything for self-defence.
A truly sad state of affairs. I do think society has become more apathetic which allows those violently inclined to have almost free reign. Until we collectively decry and do something about the social climate in our streets, things won’t change.
Sounds like your choice is to either go hard outlaw or get out while you can.
Problem is, without a real frontier, there’s nowhere left to get out to. This won’t end well.
Elise and I have been talking to great length with regards to where we belong in the future. Check back here in 3 months for (very) big news. ;)
I just don’t know how they can justify criminalising considerate, non violent citizens because of the actions of the few – especially as they don’t appear to have the police manpower to enforce the laws that actually make sense.
I feel so sorry for the knife retailers out there giving us access to quality tools and providing choice and value for money to their customers.
There is similarly Draconian legislation in the pipeline for air gun usage too.
I’d love to see properly researched figures categorising what kind of blades are used in knife crime…
I’m thinking probably more “Kitchen Devils” than Damascus bladed lock knives with German silver bolsters and staghorn scales!
Aye, its a problem but I daresay nothing will happen with regards to protesting said changes. Apathy is our worst enemy.
British ruling class mentality hasn’t changed in over 200 years in terms of disarming the population. It’s why we have a second amendment in our constitution.
True enough, I will say that the troubles (Northern Ireland) and various other factors do play a part in the British aversion to firearms. We do not have the historical bias towards rebellion either, which I do think helps answer the current and past climate towards castle doctrine and self-defence in general.