Nevermind the nanny state about porn, both viewing and creation, or drugs. Makes Washington State or Colorado look like lawless states in comparison, and yet they still have a ton of nanny state rules that help no one.
Any knife? You can't carry a pocket knife in the UK? That's ridiculous. Knives were nearly the first tool proto-man ever made, and they're still the most useful general purpose tool you can have.
For instance, Spyderco makes the popular UK Penknife (2.93' blade and no lock) and the Spy-DK that's designed around the Danish knife laws.
> Section 139 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 prohibits having with you, in a public place of any article which has a blade or is sharply pointed, (including a folding pocket knife if the cutting edge of its blade exceeds 7.62cm/3 inches) (Archbold 24-125).
http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/l_to_o/offensive_weapons_knives_...
Some limits are more reasonable than others. Saying "you can have knives but the blade must be no more than 5mm long" would be stupid; so would saying "you can drive a car but no faster than 1mph". (Because in either case you might as well, and should in preference, just say "you may not"). Likewise for a limit of 10m or 500mph (because then you might as well, and should in preference, just not bother with the limits).
If you're going to have a limit on the length of a knife blade, presumably for the sake of a small reduction in knife crime, you want a limit long enough that some (non-criminally) useful knives are shorter and short enough that the restriction, if it reduces the number of long knives in circulation, would actually do something to impede crime.
It seems plausible that a 3-inch limit would do that. Maybe a 4-inch limit too. The exact choice of limit isn't completely arbitrary: some choices are better than others. But really, the only answer to "why 3 inches rather than 4?" is "that's where we happened to make the tradeoff".
I'm guessing (not least because the above all seems kinda obvious) that your actual objection is to having any limit at all. (Perhaps on the grounds of some more general libertarian principle?) That's a reasonable objection, but I don't think "why 3 inches rather than 4?" is a good way to make it.
As for the "criminally useful" argument, I struggle to imagine what crimes could be committed with a 4" knife that couldn't be committed with a 3" knife.
You say it's plausible to you that a 3" or 4" limit would reduce knife crime. What makes you think that?
1. If possession (in public places) of knives above (say) 3" is illegal, fewer people will go about carrying knives above (say) 3". It probably won't make any difference to someone planning to get into a knife fight, of course.
2. If fewer people are casually carrying big knives, then there will be fewer opportunities for conflicts to escalate to fights involving big knives. For instance, a bar fight is less likely to end up fatal if fewer people in it are carrying serious knives. A burglary is less likely to end up fatal if the burglar isn't. Some muggers may choose to make do with musclepower rather than knives (so they're less likely to get into serious trouble if a policeman thinks they look suspicious). Etc.
3. Fights involving big knives are less dangerous than fights involving smaller knives, e.g. because a bigger knife is more likely to end up doing serious damage to internal organs. (If an expert fighter is specifically trying to do you serious harm, I'm sure they can do it with a small knife. Or a toothpick. But in cases where the goal is "establish dominance" or "get away safely from the house I just burgled" or "make my victim sorry he didn't just hand over his wallet" and there isn't serious intent to kill, I expect smaller knives to do less harm on average.)
Astute readers will notice that I'm now talking about knife fights rather than knife crime. My guess is that premeditated crime-with-knives probably wouldn't be much affected by this sort of ban. So, though I'm sure all the things I'm hoping would be reduced would technically be knife crimes (i.e., crimes committed using a knife), I think my use of that term was unhelpful. Sorry about that.
I suspect someone measured their boyhood swiss army knife blade, determined that it was about 2.5 inches, and rounded up to the next whole number.
Does that still mean you can carry a short pocket knife (one that fits in your pocket is unlikely to be long, in any case)?
The guidelines go on to say that butter knives with no cutting edge and no points are considered prohibited blades under the law, which is ridiculous, and that folding pocket knives with blades less than 3" are not considered folding if they lock open (because they are not "immediately foldable"), and are therefore prohibited. Which is, again, ridiculous, and also undoubtedly leads to many unnecessary injuries as unlocking blades close on the fingers of their users.
Not impressed with this policy's risk assessment.
https://www.withoutakey.co.uk/blog/is-it-legal-to-use-lock-p...
It concludes with:
> if you're out and about with your trusty lock picks you're being a little risky, so best to keep them at home!
which seems to imply to me that it's probably illegal to carry them in public?
The word "gravity knife" has slowly become any knife you are carrying seen by the NYPD. I am being slightly flippant but not really.
The law is completely ridiculous, there are tons of cases of brown people receiving prison terms because they were carrying a knife for work.
There are actually a lot of stabbings in NYC daily, so politicians are not motivated to repeal or clean up the language in the gravity knife law.
In 2016 the ny state assembly and the ny state senate passed a bill to repeal the NYC gravity knife law, but Governor Cuomo vetoed it.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/how-a-50s-era-new-york-knif...
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/31/opinion/new-yorks-outdate...
They gave it back to me and told me it's best if I keep it inside my pocket instead of clipped to it.
Even though that ended OK for me, there are a bunch of ways it could have gone worse. If either cop was an asshole, or having a bad day, or if I had darker skin, or was wearing a hoodie, etc. I once read about someone getting locked up overnight despite his knife being legal because he had it clipped to his pocket - the visible clip was deemed by the police in that instance to constitute "brandishing a weapon". Not sure if that's true, but probably best not to take chances.
However, no police officer would ever identify a few bump keys on your keychain....
Depending on how saavy the local police are, you may get more attention then yoi want if the cops look close enough at your keys.
Also... cars don't use pins, so they wouldn't have been using a bump key for a car, but possibly a jiggler or a blank for impressioning.
Please see:
"Illinois infers from the possession of a key designed for lock bumping an intent to commit a felony." Mississippi says a concealed pick set is prima facie evidence of intent. Similar for Ohio, Nevada, and Virginia. Tennessee code might actually make them illegal outright.