Europe, Boring Until it's Not

[Montegriffo]

Then you are back to waiting for someone to get stabbed before you take action.
The kid still gets his day in court where he can explain why he was carrying the stabby thing around and the jury get to decide whether they believe him.

[Otern]

Sounds like your police are taking this further than ours then.
This is being targeted at inner city youths and football hooligans here.
Not hearing any stories about members of the general public being stopped and searched for potato peelers.
It's funny to me that all the wing nuts are complaining about violent criminals being taken off the streets.
They'll all be wearing pussy hats and calling for open borders next.

Well yeah, obviously it's being used to target the actual criminals. The same is true here. A lot of them are druggies carrying it for self defense against other druggies. But that still doesn't make it right. Due process exist for them too. It's actually a sign of a step closer to fascism if we can just throw due process out the window for the "unwanted elements" of our society.

So, the defendant would need to prove his innocence. And the police must enforce laws equally. They won't actually stop and search a lot of regular people, but if they do, they need to apply the same interpretation of the laws on the regular person, as on the druggie, if they find a knife. And they do.

[Otern]

Then you are back to waiting for someone to get stabbed before you take action.
The kid still gets his day in court where he can explain why he was carrying the stabby thing around and the jury get to decide whether they believe him.

Again, due process.
Of all the people carrying knives, extremely few actually has violent intent. And you're not really back to waiting for someone to get stabbed. You can still confiscate knives, and arrest/charge people for carrying it, and have that day in court. But the authorities should need to prove bad intent. If they can not, the guy can have his knife back, and not be fined.

It should be like this; Find a knife. Confiscate knife, note down name, number and address. Then assess whether or not there's violent intent behind him carrying the knife. If it's probable, arrest him, and let the courts decide. If it's not probable, give the knife back and let him go.

[Ph64]

Then you are back to waiting for someone to get stabbed before you take action.
The kid still gets his day in court where he can explain why he was carrying the stabby thing around and the jury get to decide whether they believe him.

Again, due process.
Of all the people carrying knives, extremely few actually has violent intent. And you're not really back to waiting for someone to get stabbed. You can still confiscate knives, and arrest/charge people for carrying it, and have that day in court. But the authorities should need to prove bad intent. If they can not, the guy can have his knife back, and not be fined.

It should be like this; Find a knife. Confiscate knife, note down name, number and address. Then assess whether or not there's violent intent behind him carrying the knife. If it's probable, arrest him, and let the courts decide. If it's not probable, give the knife back and let him go.

I wouldn't even want that.

Kid is walking down the street with a 1.5' (.5meter) piece of steel pipe, threaded on each end. You can buy that in any hardware store. He *could* be planning to bash someone's skull in... Or, he could be going home to fix a pipe. Do you confiscate his piece of pipe, charge him with a crime and schedule him in court for it?

How about if he's walking down the street with a cricket bat? What about a shovel? Could be he's gonna use them as a weapon!?!

Or maybe he's got a piece of rope coiled in his hand, or maybe just an extension cord... I mean he just *might* be planning on using it to strangle someone!?!

Where on earth does it stop? What happened to 'innocent until proven guilty'? Have they committed any violence? Should your first assumption be their probable guilt or probable innocense?

[Montegriffo]

Then you are back to waiting for someone to get stabbed before you take action.
The kid still gets his day in court where he can explain why he was carrying the stabby thing around and the jury get to decide whether they believe him.

Again, due process.
Of all the people carrying knives, extremely few actually has violent intent. And you're not really back to waiting for someone to get stabbed. You can still confiscate knives, and arrest/charge people for carrying it, and have that day in court. But the authorities should need to prove bad intent. If they can not, the guy can have his knife back, and not be fined.

It should be like this; Find a knife. Confiscate knife, note down name, number and address. Then assess whether or not there's violent intent behind him carrying the knife. If it's probable, arrest him, and let the courts decide. If it's not probable, give the knife back and let him go.

I wouldn't even want that.

Kid is walking down the street with a 1.5' (.5meter) piece of steel pipe, threaded on each end. You can buy that in any hardware store. He *could* be planning to bash someone's skull in... Or, he could be going home to fix a pipe. Do you confiscate his piece of pipe, charge him with a crime and schedule him in court for it?

How about if he's walking down the street with a cricket bat? What about a shovel? Could be he's gonna use them as a weapon!?!

Or maybe he's got a piece of rope coiled in his hand, or maybe just an extension cord... I mean he just *might* be planning on using it to strangle someone!?!

Where on earth does it stop? What happened to 'innocent until proven guilty'? Have they committed any violence? Should your first assumption be their probable guilt or probable innocense?

Well there is no law against carrying a cricket bat or rope in public so you would have to be threatening someone to get arrested.
Knives are against the law though so if you are a young lad you had better have a good reason to be carrying one.

[Ph64]

Again, due process.
Of all the people carrying knives, extremely few actually has violent intent. And you're not really back to waiting for someone to get stabbed. You can still confiscate knives, and arrest/charge people for carrying it, and have that day in court. But the authorities should need to prove bad intent. If they can not, the guy can have his knife back, and not be fined.

It should be like this; Find a knife. Confiscate knife, note down name, number and address. Then assess whether or not there's violent intent behind him carrying the knife. If it's probable, arrest him, and let the courts decide. If it's not probable, give the knife back and let him go.

I wouldn't even want that.

Kid is walking down the street with a 1.5' (.5meter) piece of steel pipe, threaded on each end. You can buy that in any hardware store. He *could* be planning to bash someone's skull in... Or, he could be going home to fix a pipe. Do you confiscate his piece of pipe, charge him with a crime and schedule him in court for it?

How about if he's walking down the street with a cricket bat? What about a shovel? Could be he's gonna use them as a weapon!?!

Or maybe he's got a piece of rope coiled in his hand, or maybe just an extension cord... I mean he just *might* be planning on using it to strangle someone!?!

Where on earth does it stop? What happened to 'innocent until proven guilty'? Have they committed any violence? Should your first assumption be their probable guilt or probable innocense?

Well there is no law against carrying a cricket bat or rope in public so you would have to be threatening someone to get arrested.
Knives are against the law though so if you are a young lad you had better have a good reason to be carrying one.

And after a couple incidents of people getting their heads caved in by pipes and cricket bats, or strangled by an extension cord, will you support making those illegal too and arresting anyone caught with them?

If not, why not? After all, you've already agreed that such dangerous tools as knives should be illegal? A shovel, bat, rope, etc, are just other tools... That *could* be used for violence. How many incidents would it take? And why not do it now? I mean, after all, you're not suggesting we wait until someone gets strangled or their head bashed in, are we?

[Ex-California]

Zero freedom

[Montegriffo]

Again, knives are not illegal
Carrying one around in public with no good reason is illegal.

[Ex-California]

Who determines what the reason is? Don't you see the problem with this?

[Otern]

I know a guy that had a bat in his car when stopped by the police. He got off with a warning, but that's primarily because he's a charming and likeable person.