Yes, I own a knife. No, I do not want to stab anyone.

Yes, I own a knife. No, I don’t want to stab anyone.

New laws regarding offensive weapons coming into effect.

Once upon a time in a land far far away a person was deemed innocent until proven guilty. This right has disappeared along with many others.

Now, regardless of any crime committed you may not own certain items. This will now become a crime in itself. We can agree that I shouldn’t own a nuclear missile, but what’s on the banned list and more importantly what’s not included is the topic for today. I will explore the absurdity of the situation shortly.

As of yesterday, in London 62 people have been murdered this year, it now has a higher murder rate than New York! In the year up to September 2017 there were 37,443 recorded knife crimes in the UK, that’s 102 EVERY DAY! Hospital admissions for assault with a sharp instrument up 13%. Knife crime up 20%. And knife possession up 23% (all official police and government statistics). Meanwhile the government has slashed over a billion off the education budget and is removing another 20,000 police from our streets. This is our capital city.

 Meanwhile, in a small market town in South Wales, a middle-aged guy with no criminal convictions for anything is about to be told he cannot keep a gift that was given to him many years ago and holds great sentimental value because gangs of youths are running around London stabbing one another.

The current offensive weapons order was brought into effect in 1988, 30 years ago. And was updated in 2016 to include zombie knives.  The current list has 19 items on it. Here is a list taken directly from the gov.uk website.

(a)    a knuckleduster, that is, a band of metal or other hard material worn on one or more fingers, and designed to cause injury, and any weapon incorporating a knuckleduster;

(b)     (b) a swordstick, that is, a hollow walking-stick or cane containing a blade which may be used as a sword;

(c)      (c) the weapon sometimes known as a “handclaw”, being a band of metal or other hard material from which a number of sharp spikes protrude, and worn around the hand;

(d)     (d) the weapon sometimes known as a “belt buckle knife”, being a buckle which incorporates or conceals a knife;

(e)     (e) the weapon sometimes known as a “push dagger”, being a knife the handle of which fits within a clenched fist and the blade of which protrudes from between two fingers;

(f)       (f) the weapon sometimes known as a “hollow kubotan”, being a cylindrical container containing a number of sharp spikes;

(g)     (g) the weapon sometimes known as a “footclaw”, being a bar of metal or other hard material from which a number of sharp spikes protrude, and worn strapped to the foot;

(h)     (h) the weapon sometimes known as a “shuriken”, “shaken” or “death star”, being a hard non-flexible plate having three or more sharp radiating points and designed to be thrown;

(i)       (i) the weapon sometimes known as a “balisong” or “butterfly knife”, being a blade enclosed by its handle, which is designed to split down the middle, without the operation of a spring or other mechanical means, to reveal the blade;

(j)       (j) the weapon sometimes known as a “telescopic truncheon”, being a truncheon which extends automatically by hand pressure applied to a button, spring or other device in or attached to its handle;

(k)     (k) the weapon sometimes known as a “blowpipe” or “blow gun”, being a hollow tube out of which had pellets or darts are shot by the use of breath;

(l)       (l) the weapon sometimes known as a “kusari gama”, being a length of rope, cord, wire or chain fastened at one end to a sickle;

(m)   (m) the weapon sometimes known as a “kyoketsu shoge”, being length of rope, cord, wire or chain fastened at one end to a hooked knife;

(n)    (n) the weapon sometimes known as a “manrikigusari” or “kusari”, being a length of rope, cord, wire or chain fastened at each end to a hard weight or hand grip;

(o)     (o) a disguised knife, that is any knife which has a concealed blade or concealed sharp point and is designed to appear to be an everyday object of a kind commonly carried on the person or in a handbag, briefcase, or other hand luggage (such as a comb, brush, writing instrument, cigarette lighter, key, lipstick or telephone);

(p)     (p) a stealth knife, that is a knife or spike, which has a blade, or sharp point, made from a material that is not readily detectable by apparatus used for detecting metal and which is not designed for domestic use or for use in the processing, preparation or consumption of food or as a toy;

(q)     (q) a straight, side-handled or friction-lock truncheon (sometimes known as a baton);

(r)      (r) a sword with a curved blade of 50 centimetres or over in length; and for the purposes of this sub-paragraph, the length of the blade shall be the straight line distance from the top of the handle to the tip of the blade.

(s)      (s) the weapon sometimes known as a “zombie knife”, “zombie killer knife” or “zombie slayer knife”, being a blade with— (i) a cutting edge; (ii) a serrated edge; and (iii) images or words (whether on the blade or handle) that suggest that it is to be used for the purpose of violence.

Now before I go into why I think a lot of the new proposed legislation will only penalise the innocent and do nothing to counter the violence and criminality I would like to say that the laws on corrosive substances are well overdue and, in my mind, do not go far enough. And I do firmly believe there should be checks and balances in place for sensible weapons ownership.

So, what do the government propose to stop this epidemic?

Please bear in mind at this point almost all knife crime is committed using kitchen knives, Stanley knives and screwdrivers, none of which are addressed in the new laws being drawn up.

Firstly, they want to ban online sales to private addresses.

I rarely don’t think this will impact on crime at all but what it will do is stop a lot of rural people, hobbyists, sportspeople etc going about their lawful business.

Update the definition of a flick knife.

This was brought in in 1959 and current designs have adapted to work within the current law which will now almost certainly be banned. An example would be spring loaded knives, even though it has been agreed they have a legitimate function ( see director of border revenue vs Fantasia (Leeds) ltd 2017).

The most draconian of the proposed laws states that not only can you not carry these things in a public place, you can no longer own them. This means you can no longer have them in your possession at all and even though you have committed no crime, owning one of these will now be a crime and you will be treated as a criminal. With a few exemptions to do with antiques you will have to get rid of any that you own.

Now common sense seems to be as rare as the budget for policing or education, so I would just like to run through some of the items in the list to show what I mean.

Disguised knives. No argument from me, no reason to own them.

Flick knives and gravity knives. Considering you can unsheath a Stanley as quickly banning these seems a bit redundant to me, and a lot of trades and crafts require a blade you can open with one hand.

Stealth knives. Again, this makes sense, outside of the kitchen there is no need to carry one.

Knuckle dusters. Again, it makes sense to ban these as unless your name is Dave Courtney you have no legitimate reason to have one.

Sword sticks and push daggers. Again, I agree in public, so far so good.

Zombie knives. All show, no go. Most are useless as weapons.

Now it gets a little odd. Or maybe not if you remember the date was 1988 and our cinemas were full of Ninja movies.

Blowpipes.

Telescopic truncheons.

Batons. Including Tonfu.

Kubotans.

Shurikens. Throwing stars.

Kusari-Gamai. A sickle attached to rope.

Kyoketsu-shoge. A hook knife attached to a rope.

Kusari. A weight attached to a rope.

Hand or foot claws.

Samurai swords. Any curved blade over 50cm with some exemptions. The ban does not include straight edge swords etc at this point.

Now the interesting point about all of these is we do not have an epidemic of ninjas running around London killing people so why are these even on the list? All of the items listed in this section take a lot of time and effort to master and are more lightly to injure the user if not used correctly. They also in the main cost a lot of money and are hard to source. So, all you martial artists and hobby collectors, survivalists and sportspeople it looks like you will lose out because criminals and gangs are stabbing each other with kitchen knives, Stanley’s and screwdrivers. It seems to me blaming social media and banning certain weapons will not solve the problem and in the main it is only decent, hardworking law-abiding people that will lose out because of these new laws. Do we really believe anyone other than the law-abiding people will give up any weapons? Do we think that criminals will be taking their cache to the local police station? Or do we think that we will end up with a population of people unarmed and unable to defend themselves in a world where violent crime is exploding, and we can no longer rely on the police and laws to protect the innocent?

Remember murder is already illegal, so is stabbing people. Yet they continue to do it. What makes the government believe that these new laws will stop it?