carving in public

[Wook]

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I'm not sure though that it makes sense to lump lots of different activities together when having this sort of discussion. The laws governing knife and gun use are different as are the circumstances in which you use them. I'd have no problem using a knife to slice bread in a park in Central London for example but I'd probably not want to have an air rifle with me

You're right - guns and knives are not the same things nor do they illicit the same reaction. However the reactions to both are influenced by the increasingly squeamish and risk-aversive society we live in. Particularly up here in Scotland knives are beginning to provoke the same sorts of reactions that you would expect from guns. They say it is because we have a problem with neds wandering around tooled-up. But that is not a new phenomenon, whereas the hysteria I'm seeing is.

In the past I would like to think people were sensible enough to know that it is not the knife that is the problem, it is the person holding it and what they want to use it for. Society seems to be increasingly emotionally driven these days - where fear is considered a good reason for making new laws. In the past "I'm frightened of that" was not considered a good enough reason for saying "It shouldn't be allowed". These days it seems it is.

 

[Ruud]

In Belgium a SAK-type knife is only considered as a weapon when it has been used as one. Showing a knife in public, without pointing it to others with the intent to shock or frighten them, is not enough to get your knife being taken away by officers. but! some of my collegues do take a knife away from the owner whenever the exact reasons to use the knife are not clear to them. I don't recommend carving in public in Belgium.

sorry for my English btw

 

[resnikov]

I have some mates who do LARP (live action role play) think Lord of the rings meets sealed knot. They have rules about the weapons they can use and have to be made from foam with latex cover so they are very safe but from a distance they look quite real.
A group of them where running round this wood casting magic on each other and hitting each other with foam weapons. Someone sees this and calls the police that there is a mass gang war going on with swords, axes etc. Quite a large armed response arrived plus a chopper. Much pant wetting and then much laughter when it was seen there was no danger. I should also point out they were dressed up in there fantasy outfits.

Think the public can be a bit hastey at times.

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Hoodoo]

As to changing the public's perception of these sorts of things, I think that ship has well and truly sailed. The best we can hope for is to be allowed to continue our interests in peace for while, before the "final ban" eventually comes which bans your hobby altogether (be it knives, airguns, shotguns, firearms, archery....). I don't see how the relentless march toward a rubber-padded society can be stopped at this late stage.

That's the feeling I get here from across the pond about the UK laws and public perception. I usually don't weigh in on these discussions because of the heat they tend to generate but I have to say, I would not have guessed this would happen in a free society. Folks over there don't seem to trust each other very much. That's a fearful society. I teach at a state university and lot of kids walk around with knives clipped in their pocket and I've yet to hear a single negative comment from anyone, not students, not faculty, not admin. It's a very different world from what I can tell. Hopefully our freedoms will not change. The only thing I've seen over the years that has changed is in the grade schools and some high schools where generally pocket knives are no longer allowed. When I was a kid growing up on the farm, we carried our 22 rifles and bb guns on the school bus and took instruction on shooting them at the school. Every kid carried a pocket knife. You were considered an idiot if you forgot to bring yours.

 

[Retired Member southey]

Brilliant Robin!

Used my SAK to open a bottle of beer for a copper the other night this one,

 

[Ruud]

I have visited northern Sweden a couple of times now. It's great to attach your knife on your belt in the morning without having to wonder about where you might go that day or who you'd might meet. I even went into a bank to arrange a little VISA-problem, without any of the personel giving me a strange look.

 

[Huon]

You're right - guns and knives are not the same things nor do they illicit the same reaction. However the reactions to both are influenced by the increasingly squeamish and risk-aversive society we live in. Particularly up here in Scotland knives are beginning to provoke the same sorts of reactions that you would expect from guns. They say it is because we have a problem with neds wondering around tooled-up. But that is not a new phenomenon, whereas the hysteria I'm seeing is.

In the past I would like to think people were sensible enough to know that it is not the knife that is the problem, it is the person holding it and what they want to use it for. Society seems to be increasingly emotionally driven these days - where fear is considered a good reason for making new laws. In the past "I'm frightened of that" was not considered a good enough reason for saying "It shouldn't be allowed". These days it seems it is.

I understand what you are saying but I still don't think it is a recent development. The same attitudes have been around for ages but just haven't been the subject of as much publicity.

The main thing I disagree with is whether it is wise to publicly use a knife or not. As far as I'm concerned if I curtail knife use through worry that some person who didn't like knives may complain about it I am helping to create the type of attitudes and restrictions you are concerned about. Personally I'd rather continue to use tools legally and responsibly with the intention of dealing with any objections as sensibly as possible when they arise. That way I can help to reinforce the positive side of knife use.

Cheers!

Huon

 

[British Red]

That's the feeling I get here from across the pond about the UK laws and public perception. I usually don't weigh in on these discussions because of the heat they tend to generate but I have to say, I would not have guessed this would happen in a free society. Folks over there don't seem to trust each other very much. That's a fearful society. I teach at a state university and lot of kids walk around with knives clipped in their pocket and I've yet to hear a single negative comment from anyone, not students, not faculty, not admin. It's a very different world from what I can tell. Hopefully our freedoms will not change. The only thing I've seen over the years that has changed is in the grade schools and some high schools where generally pocket knives are no longer allowed. When I was a kid growing up on the farm, we carried our 22 rifles and bb guns on the school bus and took instruction on shooting them at the school. Every kid carried a pocket knife. You were considered an idiot if you forgot to bring yours.

I used to take my .22 (long rifle cartridge) to school as well Hoodoo - with a couple of boxes of ammo in my pocket.

I suspect neither countries children get instruction on important tools anymore.

It saddens me that many people say the answer is education - and then ban all these tools from centres of learning. Talk about self defeating!

Learning to use a knife and a gun is an important part of growing up - as is a spanner, a lathe or a computer. Its about time that education became more skill centric and less knowledge / academia constrained.

Don't misunderstand, I enjoyed my school days and learning facts, formuale and dates. But I rather wish I had learned to weld rather than Greek or to service an engine rather than RE.

Red

 

[sandbender]

"...facts, formuale and dates..."

I'm not sure that even these are taught these days.

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

Robert A. Heinlein (Time Enough For Love)

 

[HillBill]

There were a few like that on top of malham cove a less than a month back

I have some mates who do LARP (live action role play) think Lord of the rings meets sealed knot. They have rules about the weapons they can use and have to be made from foam with latex cover so they are very safe but from a distance they look quite real.
A group of them where running round this wood casting magic on each other and hitting each other with foam weapons. Someone sees this and calls the police that there is a mass gang war going on with swords, axes etc. Quite a large armed response arrived plus a chopper. Much pant wetting and then much laughter when it was seen there was no danger. I should also point out they were dressed up in there fantasy outfits.

Think the public can be a bit hastey at times.

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Huon]

I'm not sure that even these are taught these days.

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

Robert A. Heinlein (Time Enough For Love)

Facts, figures and dates are taught but practical stuff seems to have been de-emphasised. Food technology rather than cooking for example

Lazarus Long had rather an advantage in acquiring the skills you list. Wasn't he several thousand years old and still kicking? His thoughts on incest would be an interesting addition to the quoted list

 

[jackcbr]

I'm glad someone can get an armed response. I caught someone in my mother-in-laws wood with a rifle. When I called the police, they said they couldn't find me on their map and would get the neigbouring police force to contact me as it was their patch. 20 minutes later I was called back in which time he'd done a runner. Good job the dogs spooked him and he was more concerned with them biting him.

Yet I'm up there with a chainsaw clearing the foot path and someone calls an armed response on me thinking I'm setting up a terrorist camp overlooking Gatwick.

Rant over.

I'd love to just sit down and carve in public, but I think I would choose my spot. Knowing that the area I live has a youth violence issue, I'd think twice about sitting on the street carving. But out on a foot path or on a bimble I wouldn't think twice. I think if you smile and greet others passing by, they would feel less threatened and open to question you, out of curiosity, what it is you are doing.

At least I'd like to think that was the situation.

 

[santaman2000]

I'm glad someone can get an armed response. I caught someone in my mother-in-laws wood with a rifle. When I called the police, they said they couldn't find me on their map and would get the neigbouring police force to contact me as it was their patch. 20 minutes later I was called back in which time he'd done a runner. Good job the dogs spooked him and he was more concerned with them biting him...

You'd have gotten a much quicker response if you'd called them back and sais, "No hurry, I've shot him and he's not going anywhere."

Seriously though, there is an old saying: When seconds count, the police are only minutes away. (and I'm a retired cop)

 

[santaman2000]

That's the feeling I get here from across the pond about the UK laws and public perception. I usually don't weigh in on these discussions because of the heat they tend to generate but I have to say, I would not have guessed this would happen in a free society. Folks over there don't seem to trust each other very much. That's a fearful society. I teach at a state university and lot of kids walk around with knives clipped in their pocket and I've yet to hear a single negative comment from anyone, not students, not faculty, not admin. It's a very different world from what I can tell. Hopefully our freedoms will not change. The only thing I've seen over the years that has changed is in the grade schools and some high schools where generally pocket knives are no longer allowed. When I was a kid growing up on the farm, we carried our 22 rifles and bb guns on the school bus and took instruction on shooting them at the school. Every kid carried a pocket knife. You were considered an idiot if you forgot to bring yours.

You must be older than I am Hoodoo. Even back in the 60s knives were prohibited in public schools in rural Mississippi. However that prohibition was generally ignored by the time students reached 6th grade or so and unenforced by the faculty.

As to the 22s; well I kept a shotgun in the car trunk at school as well but it was for hunting after school, not for any class at school. I would have loved such classes but unfortunately then as now, school budgets just didn't have room for them.

 

[santaman2000]

The armed response worry has been an issue for shooters for as long as I can remember. My father was the captain of the local shooting club and toyed with the idea of putting a rifle range in at home. One of his worries was that a neighbour would call in the police. This was probably around 40 years ago and in a country with more general gun use and hunting than the UK...

Ironically a legal gun range might well draw more attantion (unwanted police call outs) than an illegal shooting. A murder or other act of violence usually only involves a few quick shots which startles the public BUT; they then tend to rationalize it away as either imagined or a car backfiring, etc. A gun range on the other hand is obviously repeated gun shots and draws thetr attention more.

 

[sandbender]

"...Lazarus Long had rather an advantage in acquiring the skills you list. Wasn't he several thousand years old and still kicking? His thoughts on incest would be an interesting addition to the quoted list ..."

Well that wouldn't be the only area where Mr Heinlein and I didn't agree.

People do seem less inclined to add to their skills, even if only to ask 'how is that done'. Seeing Robin doing a bit of spoon carving you would hope that most folks would think "ooo I wonder if could do that" but I think that that is unlikely. And part of that is possibly down to the education system we have, it isn't particularly 'skill centric', children are not encouraged to enquire, to take things apart, to learn things that might actually be useful day to day.

When I first went to a Cub scout camp back in the seventies there were kids my age who didn't know how to peel potatoes or how long to boil them, I was surprised at that, these days many kids probably don't know what a potato looks like.

"...or to service an engine rather than RE..."

I had to buy a Landrover before I was forced to learn to service an engine.

 

[jackcbr]

You'd have gotten a much quicker response if you'd called them back and sais, "No hurry, I've shot him and he's not going anywhere."

Seriously though, there is an old saying: When seconds count, the police are only minutes away. (and I'm a retired cop)

Well fortunately I have had a wee bit of self defence training, and given about 20 years of instruction in it too. Maybe misguidedly whilst he was fussing about the dogs I closed the gap between us so he couldn't raise the barrel towards me. I convinced him to breach the rifle and make it safe. Once I was on the phone to the police he took off and I moved out of the area sharpish too.

 

[santaman2000]

I've had a bit of training as well; military and police (in addition to Shotokan years ago) All of them always taught that "closing the gap" was moving the last 12 yards and actually engaging, not getting within that distance.

All that said though, I've learned that the most effective defense tactics involve my own gun.

 

[Retired Member southey]

What did you Carve Robin?

 

[Biker]

What did you Carve Robin?

Gooood question.