Legal Issues
Pocket knives are legal to own in most countries, but may face legal restrictions on their use. While pocket knives are almost always designed as tools, they do have the potential to be considered by legal authorities as weapons.
In the United States, knife laws vary from state to state and even within different cities and counties of the same state. Some local jurisdictions prohibit the possession or use of pocket knives that feature locking blades. Others prohibit certain blade styles perceived by law enforcement and legal authorities as optimal for offensive fighting, transforming the pocket knife from a utility tool into a deadly weapon. These might include knives with dirk, dagger (double-edge), bowie, or stiletto blades. In some jurisdictions it is illegal to conceal knives larger than a certain size or with blades over a certain length, particularly when combined with locking blade mechanisms. The possession or carrying of a folding pocket knife with a quick-opening mechanism such as a gravity knife, butterfly knife, balisong, or switchblade may be prohibited. Under U.S. federal law, switchblades and ballistic knives are banned from interstate shipment, sale, or importation, or possession on federal or Indian lands or U.S. possessions and may be prohibited entirely in some states. Knives of any size or configuration may be prohibited by federal or state laws in certain designated areas or places, such as schools, courthouses, jails, power plants, or airports.
In the United Kingdom it is illegal to carry a knife having a blade more than 3 inches in length in public without "good reason". The terms "in public" and "good reason" are not defined, but examples of "religious duty", "national dress" and "requirement of employment or hobby" are given. It is left up to a police officer's individual subjective discretion, and ultimately a magistrate to decide if a knife is being carried "in public", and for a "good reason". Folding knives with blades of 3 inches or less may be carried without needing to provide "good reason" so long as the blade is not capable of being locked in the open position. However, it is illegal to have the intention of using any object in public as a weapon, meaning that even a knife that is legal to carry without needing "good reason" may still be found to be illegal if the police officer has grounds to suspect it will be used as a weapon. The onus lies on the officer to prove that intent. Recent court decisions in the U.K. have made it easier for public prosecutors to obtain knife possession convictions by preventing the accused from citing self-defence or even fear of attack as a justifiable reason for carrying a knife. The U.K. government advisory website on crime and justice states flatly that "even if you carry a knife to protect yourself or make yourself feel safer but don’t intend to use it then you are committing a crime."
Read more about this topic: Pocket Knife
Famous quotes containing the words legal and/or issues:
“The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“The “universal moments” of child rearing are in fact nothing less than a confrontation with the most basic problems of living in society: a facing through one’s children of all the conflicts inherent in human relationships, a clarification of issues that were unresolved in one’s own growing up. The experience of child rearing not only can strengthen one as an individual but also presents the opportunity to shape human relationships of the future.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)