Slightly OT - Machete legality

I can't really see them tracking me down for a Usenet comment.

You could indeed, but given that the police normally search or arrest you for a reason, you'd have to be trying to push a poor point really hard to think that you'd net more OAPs ferrying lethal "heirlooms" around than d******ds packing a pistol who've been pulled over because their tax disc is out of date.

Actually it is perfectly legal to own (without a licence even) an antique firearm, which includes handguns, so long as it is of an obsolete type for which ammunition is not currently available. One can also legally use antique muzzle loading hand guns, though one does need to be licenced for that. Used to have a teacher at my junior school who would bring his muzzle loaders in from time to time. His favourite stunt was firing a minitiature cannon on the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalger.

You have needed a firearms certificate since at least the 1930s, and you need to have the certificate with you when you are in possession of the gun. Plus there are administrative rules on how it may be carried. None of whay you say above required handguns to be prohibited: it was already happening.

People with legally held handguns were supposed to be carefully checked before they ever got permission. People with a record of criminal violence didn't get it. Somebody walking down the Edgeware Road with a revolver in their pocket, and none of the paperwork to prove their permission and their identity, was a criminal.

Banning handguns hasn't made any difference to that. It's no easier to make an arrest or prove a charge of unlawful possession.

|| Richard Brookman wrote: ||| EMB wrote: ||| ||||| they allowed me on the plane with it (and ||||| cautioned me to never mention the fact they had broken the rules ||||| for me). ||| ||| Except on Usenet, obviously. ||| || I can't really see them tracking me down for a Usenet comment.

I *was* joking - although in Bliar's Britain I wouldn't be too sure.

ARGH!!! :)

And your spelling still hasn't improved : -)

Blimey!

Oh well, nickers to them ;-)

If they were as desperate as this gentleman they might!

I have a bunch of hand guns here that 'do not chamber a commercially available cartridge' which, coupled with their age, makes them exempt.

Plus, as our local Firearms Officer points out, nobody has ever run amok round a shopping center with a muzzle loading flintlock as the reload time tends to preclude gunning people down by the roomful.

nigelH

Let's not go off on a tangent, I was only using a gun example because some people were using it to go on about scrapping a law because it wasn't 100% effective. I was trying to point out that bans are used to allow a discovery during a minor offence to be used to help reduce the number of major offences, substitute "having a handgun" to "having a handgun while not complying with act xx subsection yy" and it's still the same thing.

ISTR that handguns were banned in a vain attempt to reduce the number in circulation after some kind of moral panic in the media along the lines of "why would they want to do it", and all that s*it, like the

In message , Ian Rawlings writes

Ah but it's not off on a tangent and its strangely on topic. There will be lots of people who will not find it odious to have a ban on certain items because it affects them not one jot.

If there is enough people who think a ban isn't really much bother to them and can be convinced that it might work then politicians will go ahead and push for a ban.... as you seem to understand:

Some of us have already had our everyday lives buggered about by laws that are simply brought into being to allow the public to think they are safer. I wouldn't be surprised once the Bumblers find out we are roaming about with vehicles full of sharp things it will be used against us. Ban the 4x4; it might save the planet. Ban the off roader; it might save a newt.

Sorry mate. I really don't wish to look like I'm having a go at you (or anyone here). Please don't take offence. :)

I don't think you're having a go at me, I just don't think that you've understood what I've been on about, and this post just makes me think that even more, so I'd suggest we just go off on our separate ways ;-)

In message , Ian Rawlings writes

I do understand. You don't seem to understand that its you who doesn't understand what I understand...... You must understand that? Anyway I have a feeling that if you drive around habitually with a machete in a Landrover you will get nicked by the cops because it is now illegal to do so unless you were actually on the point of clearing a lane or could prove you were on your way to do so. BUT I think the chances of you being stopped by a policeman are slim; unless your vehicle is defective, looks defective, its very late or you are unlucky enough to be driving around just after some sort of incident. So basically you are taking your chances if you keep this sort of gear in your landrover all the time.

Go figure as the Merkins say........ We are probably all criminals now but most of us haven't been caught.

so we do what? separate the sharp tools from the lifting/turning/prying tools and leave them where exactly? completely unworkable - akin to passing legislation that vehicle lights should be removed when travelling during daylight in case they should be inadvertantly switched on and the resultant carbon emission destroys Cleethorpes.

I'd like to think that the police will only drive around with a boot full of arms when responding to a specific threat - but that ain't gonna happen either.

probably? Government of the people by the people - it's gone for now.

Think again, a firend was stopped and breathalised a few weeks ago while she was driving at 30 in a 30 zone at 11 in the evening. The copper's reason for doing so... "nobody stays within the speed limit at this time of night so you're acting suspiciously".

Last week a colleague or Arab origin was followed for several miles on his way home, stopped and harassed. The copper said "are you trying to evade me?" and cited the fact that he had taken a longer route to his home than he could have, and had a dirty car!. Of course he only knew he took a longer route after following him for sevaral miles, so it was blatantly obvious he was targeted for being Arab.

A few days ago in the middle of the afternoon there was a random check point set up on the way into that well known den of terrorism, Scarborough!. Cars were being picked out by a plod standing in the middle of the road using god knows what rules to decide who should be harassed for half an hour while just going about their business, I certainly could see no pattern to those stopped.

The traffic cops around here seem to be very short of useful things to do so are making themselves work. Greg

First off, Is anyone in this debate a serving or ex police officer?

Is anyone in this debate a member of an elite (rich, powerful or connected to )?

Just so we all know the provenance of opinions.

As far as the assertion that the police generally act in an even handed, proper way and usually exercise the sort of discretion that is commensurate with a great many decent peoples idea of reasonableness, one would have to be naive in the extreme or to have led a very sheltered life within a community of Daily Mail readers or others of the ivory towered brigade.

It was asserted by Ian that the police tend to stop and search the 'lower echelons' of society, unfortunately not all those deemed to be 'lower echelon' are as evil in thought and deed as those judging them.

Our laws are pretty good on the whole mostly because the checks and balances of precedent and common law produce more 'perverse' jury decisions than the generally reactionary media care to report. Unfortunately the 'discretion' of policeman is abused to an extreme degree everyday. The unlawful so called 'routine' stop and search, merely being legitimised by either seeking the smallest minute of a reason, easy with traffic related excuses, dirty number plate, broken lens or any minor fault or another favourite is simply to state the driver was driving in suspicious manner, drunk, going suspiciously slow etc., etc. These abuses of the law are deemed acceptable by those who live closer to the lower echelons of society, such as policemen, who therefore have a disproportionate perception of the impact of criminals and other ner-do-wells on the greater community. Its these reactionary neo Gestapo types who assert that the loss of liberty, privacy and our common rights is a price worth paying to keep us safe.

I'd rather take my chances that have this nanny state turn ever further into a Gestapo one.

My vehicle looks like a heap of junk, it is a wonder I am not pulled over all the time, unless of course it being an old landie simply means that it is ignored in a way some other old banger might not be.

In order to discover anything nasty a very thorough serch would be necessary as living in the neighbourhood I do, everything inside is behind lock and key.

I would think in certain localities it is a lot easier to get away with the assumption that one is either on ones way to or from a place where such tools are a legitimate necessity. In the centre of a major city such as Birmingham, Manchester or London it might be harder to prove.

It all comes down to common sence in the end. For someone who has to keep his landie on the road overnight, if I were to take a machete with me which were normally kept in my home, I would at some point have to use a public walkway to get there, I would assume under the circumstances that would be legitimate, however if I were to walk down to the shops first with the same object it would not be.

I have been stopped by the police only once in my four years of ownership and that for good reason, that I did not have my lights on. The police although being suspicios as to what I was doing that far from home at that time of night, nonetheless did not bother to serch my landie once I had given them a satisfactory explanation and apologised for forgetting to put my lights back on after a temporary stop.

Of course road checks are set up sometimes, and I don't know what rules they use. Some years ago they were stopping cars on the ring road in Coventry and looking in the boots for something or other. As for me, I was driving my limo and they just waved me by. I don't carry a machete anyway, I carry things that are more obviosly tools not weapons. I am sure that given that my landie is converted into a camper, such things are not out of place and only an idiot and time waster of a copper would bother to make a point out of it, because if they did, I am sure the crown prosecution service would throw it out and I could counter sue the police force.

Round here I reckon the local police would all recognise my landie anyway it is distinctive enough, and no they have no cause to bother me unless I do something stupid.