daveO, Your 'facts' and not facts, they are an incorrect and naive interpretation of almost no 'facts'.
Do you recall a court deciding that lock knives with blades under 3" were the same as fixed blade knives and then prosecuting on that basis? That was because the written act kept it vague.
Some points you seem to miss, but a judge won't:
any knife which has a blade which opens automatically by hand pressure applied to a button, spring or other device in or attached to the knife, sometimes known as a “flick knife” or “flick gun”
The word '
sometimes'... thus such knives are not always 'flick knives'. So we can now include any knife as potential for the preceding words.
Even without that, your given definition of a flick knife as
a blade hidden inside a handle which shoots out when a button is pressed
could just as easily apply to many knives, when the prosecution demonstrates any one-handed opener with a well-made pivot. The words are almost meaningless really and open to very wide interpretation. 'Shoots out'... what does that mean to a non-expert judge being shown a quick-opening thumbstud knife?
So, we are basically left with the word 'automatically'. What does that mean, to the same judge? You've already admitted that the gravity knife situation is being abused... do you really think that won't be the case here too given the chance?
'Automatically' basically means without user input; once the 'button' (thumbstud, flipper) is 'pressed' and released. Most decent one-handed knives can be made to finish opening after the finger has left the 'button', even if only at the last moment. One is all it takes to be demonstrated in court and they all become illegal to own. That is what the police and government want from this.
I have several knives with thumb studs and I can open even the stiffest of them without keeping my thumb on the stud all the way to the lock. The stiffest takes some effort... but that is exactly what the prosecution will put in to convince the court!
If these proposals go ahead in even the slightest way, I think it will soon follow that case law will outlaw all one handed openers as they come before courts. That might not bother you, but it bothers me to have useful tools taken away from me when I have done nothing wrong, for the sake of a political leader trying to make a name for herself.
