Relatively Obscure: In some countries, they just shove one of those into your hand as soon as it pops out of your mom's vag. And those places are AWESOME.

There are countries where your mom's vag dispenses machetes?

I think we should make firearms training a mandatory course right before graduating High School. That way we can cure gun ignorance and (for some) an incentive to graduate.

Ral: Relatively Obscure: In some countries, they just shove one of those into your hand as soon as it pops out of your mom's vag. And those places are AWESOME.

There are countries where your mom's vag dispenses machetes?

Yeah, but they tend to be on the lunatic minge...

/Damn! Used British slang. I must purify myself through ritual mortification.

Pinko_Commie:


Bullshiat.
The applicable part of the law is the Criminal Justice Act (1988), Section 139 being the most important.
"It is an offence for any person, without lawful authority or good reason, to have with him in a public place, any article which has a blade or is sharply pointed except for a folding pocket-knife which has a cutting edge to its blade not exceeding 3 inches." [CJA 1988 section 139(1)]
So, as long as you have a good reason you can carry any bladed object, for instance you can have a machete if you are doing some garden clearance, and you can carry a folding pocket knife as long as the blade is less than 3 inches, which pretty muich covers Swiss army knives, leathermans etc, though a special exception is made for lock knives, which are considered to be fixed blades for the purposes of the law.

a) Who decides "good reason"? The police, who then steal your expensive pocket tool and no doubt lock you up for a night if you protest.
b)My leatherman has two blades both of which lock and are over 3". Unsurprisingly. Anything less would be little use outside of an office.
c)If I want to carry a general utility tool/knife for whatever minor emergencies life throws at me I am, at the least, discouraged.

/Bottom line: Britain today is lacking in that hard to define quality our grandads called "common sense".

He bought it for traversing the Welsh rainforest.

Question for British farkers:

Is it illegal to carry around a large flathead screwdriver? It would work quite well as a killing weapon, and you could always use the excuse that you're heading somewhere to repair a friend's PC.

Next thing you know we'll be suspending children for taking a plastic knife to school.

Oh...wait...

give me doughnuts: Pseudowolf: You know, regardless of what "Shawn of the Dead" would have you believe, when the inevitable Zombie Apocalypse happens, England's farked.

Is there an age restriction on cricket bats?

Not yet, but there are those in Parliament who have discussed banning them because you might hurt someone with one.

I can't wait for the movie version of Snow Crash to come out.

Illiterate chavs will go nuts when they find out how effective glass knives are.

Machete? $4.99 at Harbor Freight

Credy: Question for British farkers:

Is it illegal to carry around a large flathead screwdriver? It would work quite well as a killing weapon, and you could always use the excuse that you're heading somewhere to repair a friend's PC.

Carrying it with the intent of using it as a weapon? Yes.

Carrying it because you need a screwdriver to screw in screws. No.

It's all about context.

A 14 year old chav hanging around on a street corner with a large screwdriver in his pocket is going to get it confiscated at a minimum as he's blatently carrying it for violent purposes.
A bloke in a pub with one inside his jacket. I highly suspect he'll get carted off down the station for carrying an offensive weapon.
If it's hanging from your toolbelt and your're up a ladder fixing something, or working on your car, or doing something that would actually cause you to need a screwddriver, then they won't bat an eyelid.

It's not rocket science people.

/if the copper was any way PC savvy he would realise that PC's rarely (if ever) have flathead screws in them :-p

I think a machete is the sort of thing you notice someone carrying. Whoa.

Expressable as the sum of two cubes: snuff3r: adamgreeney: I fail to see how this is a fail.

It's a coping mechanism deployed by some article submitters who can't wrap their heads around the idea that an entire country doesn't want rampant gun ownership.

Just smile and nod.

Of course, this is just a coping mechanism used to deal with the fact that you have no real argument for gun control.
Back on topic, I don't care if the whole country doesn't want rampant gun ownership, but this incident is a FAIL. If a kid is going to stab or cut someone, he is not going to be carrying a machete around London. He is going to use a smaller knife that he can hide from the cameras and police (not saying Britain is a police state, so STFU before you accuse me of that).
What is wrong with a kid being allowed to buy a machete? It is a tool. If it were a switchblade, I could see the point: It's designed for easy concealment for use in an attack, either on you by you. A machete, though, is designed for use in camping, and for clearing bush. I've used one for basic yardwork.

Why not freak out if a kid buys a hammer or screwdriver? Both of those could be used as a weapon? The first car I owned came with a tire iron; should that be made illegal?
/subby

You are a fantastic idiot. I explained why you shouldn't sell a giant knife to a child. Good lord.

DancingJester: Oh just before I bugger off this seems as good a place as any.

Screw you Fark for not greening this (new window) story about the effective end of ID cards in the UK. It would be nice, just once, to have a story about the people beating the government into submission not the other way round. If people still felt the need to get all uk sux about it, well we did waste £1 billion on this foible.

/Hoping this doesn't count as harassing Fark ....
//Also hoping I haven't just missed this story being on Fark because boy wouldn't I look dumb(er).

Don't sweat it - Fark is here to make money through page impressions. The combined numbers of US gun enthusiasts and virgin teenage hard men on here is always going to outweigh the number of people capable of having an informed discussion about pretty much anything related to another country, or women for that matter. It's largely due to many of the posters' insularity, poor comprehension skills and lack of life experience, but the modmins know what makes the money here.

Huh. I had access to my dad's service machete growing up, yet I never did anything stupid with it.

/That snapping turtle needed decapitating.
//Family made turtle soup.
///The turtle was a mean SOB.

A company I used to work for had a policy stating that "weapons or guns" could not be brought onto company premises. Which begs the question: isn't a gun a weapon? And: is a baseball bat a weapon?

The company was based in California, so perhaps clear and logical thinking was not to be expected.

adamgreeney: Expressable as the sum of two cubes: snuff3r: adamgreeney: I fail to see how this is a fail.

It's a coping mechanism deployed by some article submitters who can't wrap their heads around the idea that an entire country doesn't want rampant gun ownership.

Just smile and nod.

Of course, this is just a coping mechanism used to deal with the fact that you have no real argument for gun control.
Back on topic, I don't care if the whole country doesn't want rampant gun ownership, but this incident is a FAIL. If a kid is going to stab or cut someone, he is not going to be carrying a machete around London. He is going to use a smaller knife that he can hide from the cameras and police (not saying Britain is a police state, so STFU before you accuse me of that).
What is wrong with a kid being allowed to buy a machete? It is a tool. If it were a switchblade, I could see the point: It's designed for easy concealment for use in an attack, either on you by you. A machete, though, is designed for use in camping, and for clearing bush. I've used one for basic yardwork.

Why not freak out if a kid buys a hammer or screwdriver? Both of those could be used as a weapon? The first car I owned came with a tire iron; should that be made illegal?
/subby

You are a fantastic idiot. I explained why you shouldn't sell a giant knife garden tool to a childteenager. Good lord.

If you knives are outlawed, only outlaws will have knives.

Why don't you put the whole world in a bottle, Superman

/the last isn't directed at you, merely the folks who are outraged someone can buy a conspicuous tool.

adamgreeney:

You are a fantastic idiot. I explained why you shouldn't sell a giant knife to a child. Good lord.

Ummm, no. You explained why you don't sell knives to teens, and I agree that's a good policy. However, you sell swords, which serve no other purpose than to kill people. It's what they're designed to do. A machete is designed to cut through small trees and branches, or similar.

Now, if you want to have a reasonable discussion about this matter, I'm entirely open to the idea. So lets start over, and don't call me an idiot again, please. In return, I'll do the same.

/nice to meet you
//think I'm being trolled