Stopped By The Police

[tombear]

Yup, unless you act aggressively or awkwardly the police always seam perfectly reasonable where I've lived so far.

a few years back we had a dryer fire, or rather smoulder, called the fire brigade and they cleared the place of smoke, checked everything and showed us what had happened. I was quite a serious collector of deactivated LMGS and Commonwealth small arms then and when they saw them they called up the tiny ( honestly she seamed about 16 and a foot shorter than the rest of us) police women who had been with them. She apologised but said they had to call the fire arms squad to check they were legitimate, policy at that time. Anyhoo they were out on a shout so I had to chat and ply with tea and biscuits this poor girl for about a hour before they came. Lovely chaps, gave a cursory check on the deac certificates, checked a couple of random guns to see if they had been buggered about with and then had a play with them as we talked guns. Both were ex army ( the lass had fled in relief ) and reminisced about the SLR , Sterling and L4. They seamed quite disappointed I didn't have A L7 to play with.

Never been stopped and searched. When I used to hitch as a student one stopped to see if I was OK and after a quick chat apologised that he couldn't give me a lift to a better spot.

I did get a tiny SAK taken from me in a big bunch of keys ( got a cloak ticket to pick it up after ) when going to see Iron Maiden at the Corn Exchange in Stoke. What I'd forgot about, being a bit knackered coming straight from a labouring job was that I still had the fixed pruning knife in a sheath dangling from my belt under my coat. The security blokes missed it completely.

atb

Tom

 

[Mesquite]

Entering court house to get some documents stamped, same knife in bag. Court officer took me outside, said they hadn't seen the knife and told me to conceal it outside the courthouse then come in again.

You're lucky to have been stopped by an officer who showed some common sense because it's actually illegal to carry any type of knife, locking or otherwise, into a court building unless you're actually working inside it and it's a tool of your trade.

 

[C_Claycomb]

In the late 90s, while at university, a group of us from the university engineering department were invited to visit the airport fire department at Heathrow to see if we could come up with a bit of kit to take the place of a man guiding the hose into an aircraft and down the isle. At the time I always carried my SAK Camper and a Puma Sportec which was 3", two hand operation back lock. I had carried it onto planes several times before without problems, and didn't even think about it.

We were ushered in to the security station for airfield staff and to streamline things, my friend and I simply dumped all the metal stuff we had into my jacket pockets and ran that through the x-ray machine. As my coat went through a female security guard came in and spotted "something" on the screen. She had the knife out, opened it, measured the blade carefully, and with visible disappointment found that it was sub 3 inch (which I thought was a pretty poor attitude). She then tried to close it without depressing the back lock... Being helpful I showed her what was needed.
Dangokenest:
The next thing I know she is saying its an illegal weapon, that they will confiscate it and call the police on me.

I was completely blindsided and was very lucky that the guy from the fire department (a military veteran) smoothed things over since I would not have known where to start. The knife was returned to the boot of a car and it was agreed that they would overlook it.

Such was the available information at the time that it was quite a while before I was able to work out what the law was, or that it had been re-interpreted with Case Law.

I have since had some near misses when I have been on my way somewhere with security or passed a police checkpoint and realized that I have absentmindedly come out carrying a 3+ inch locker. I do not find it a nice feeling and am just as happy as anything not to have had to have any conversations about it.

 

[C_Claycomb]

The only time I have had a run in with armed police was when taking a 12ft.lb air rifle in a locking case to the US via Birmingham International Airport. I had taken the same rifle, in the same case, to the US via Heathrow before without any problems, just a quick look at checkin by airport security wearing jackets and ties.

At Birmingham I was sent off to wait in a little side room for over 45 minutes, surrounded by signs stating that anything they seized from travellers would not be there when the travelers returned. Eventually in come a couple of armed police, man and woman, vests, Glocks and H&Ks. The man in his late 20s, early 30s took the lead, wanted to know if I had a license, then wanted to know if I had documentation proving that I did not need a license! No sense of humour when I pointed out that I was trying to take the rifle out of the country rather than bring it in!

Eventually settled for copying down the serial number (I didn't even realize that my rifle had a serial number until then), told me not to "try anything like this again...I'll be watching for you on the way back." and allowed to leave.

The joke is that on the previous trip, through LHR, I had had to go find staff to locate my rifle case, which was not with the rest of the oversized luggage, was walked into Customs, and had to open the case there to prove that it was only an air rifle and not something else. On the return through Birmingham, not only was my MP5 toting friend not there, but both my case, and the big double rifle case belonging to a guy with two huge camo duffles, were on the regular oversized luggage conveyor. We just picked them up and walked out to the concourse without anyone challenging us at all.

 

[Two Socks]

I had an encounter with the police regarding knives once. I was 18 at the time, had just come back from an 8 month stay in Africa, and had brought some shiney (and blunt) local knives and a machete as gifts and souvenirs back to the Netherlands. I had not been through securities much at all at that point, and I figured it would be best if I just went through the section to declare stuff and ask if it was ok to bring this in, to save myself the trouble of being picked for a search and having to deal with it then. The people of security at Schiphol airport were a bit tense when I asked them if it was ok that I brought some knives into the country, and asked me to open my bag and slowly take out the items. I started with the machete, and that was ok. Two other knives were ok as well. Then I took a small local ritual dagger from the bag that was "double edged" (although this blade much like the others actually had no edges at all). Immediatly the security grabbed their radio: "Request for immediate back-up, we have a catogery 4 weapon overhere". In no time 3 armed cops with vests came rushing in. It took a minute or two for the situation to calm down and for the cops to understand that I was not seized waving the blade around but actually just wanted to avoid trouble by asking what was ok.
The police asked me where I came from, what I`d done there and why I though weapons were appropriate souvenirs ("they are shiney, sir") and after that let me go with all the blades in my bag and the instruction to not unpack them until I was home. The actual police was very sensible, but I cannot for the life of me understand why the security people escalated a very calm and friendly situation by such a panicky radio call. There was no need for that and I was relieved that the police was a lot calmer and more professional to deal with.

 

[brambles]

The police can't do anything. Look up John Harris on Youtube, quicker than me trying to explain it ;-)

Prison food is pretty horrible , but you'll get used to it eventually. All of these "Freemen of blahblah" are certifiable nutjobs.

 

[garethw]

Reminds me of this : Caught by the fuzz!!

[video=youtube;biyea3TCVXI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biyea3TCVXI[/video]

 

[Elines]

You're lucky to have been stopped by an officer who showed some common sense because it's actually illegal to carry any type of knife, locking or otherwise, into a court building unless you're actually working inside it and it's a tool of your trade.

Agreed (he said, speaking from personal experience)

 

[BigMonster]

It's all about the circumstances. Even a screwdeiver can be "illegal" if you are carrying it in the middle of the night as you might be going to break in to a house. Or a tiny key chain tool like the leatherman squirt if you are taking it inside the club on a friday night.
Be reasonable and polite and you will be fine. Keep in mind that police can't search anybode whenever they feel like it and it's a lot of paper work if they do.

And my personal way of looking at carrying my multitool. I rather have it on me and use it multiple times over 30 years and get in trouble once. Than not to have it on me for 30 years to avoid getting "caught" once.

 

[User3326]

Prison food is pretty horrible , but you'll get used to it eventually. All of these "Freemen of blahblah" are certifiable nutjobs.

I'll generally eat anything anyway ;-) I've always had a few screws loose as well If you get past the derogatory labeling, filter out the bad apples who misuse it and look at the essence of what is being said and what has and is being done they have a point.

I just don't get it. I don't understand all the fear and legislation. We all use a knife indoors daily but if you carry it outside boom. Its a tool that can be used as a weapon, like thousands of other things, but it seems blown out of all proportion. If you carry a knife that isn't a pen knife, even a penknife can get you into bother as well, your guilty of carrying an offensive weapon unless you can give a valid reason, valid to who, for that knife to remain a tool instead of a weapon. Your generally guilty unless you can prove otherwise. What happened to innocent until proven guilty.

As has been said if your polite you'll never get any trouble, but that doesn't distract from why.
Sorry op for the slight derailment.