I'm seriously laughing at both sides of this issue.

first at the dullards that think they're intimidating if they hold an eating utensil from their mom's kitchen.

second at the British police that somehow think it's ENTIRELY REASONABLE to create an entirely new task force to prosecute people WHO POST PICTURES ON THE INTERNET.


I have no opinions on this matter, I'm just enjoying the show.

example vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUCRamTAJEY

an example of the offenders.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002400414244

At the end of the video: "Let us know how you think we can stop young people thinking that brandishing knives on the Internet is cool".

Stop making a deal of it. Durr.

On one hand it's understandable why they are going after them, after all, why would you be brandishing a knife in such a manner anyway, not to mention the UK's dominant knife crimes. It's the fear that you'll move on from posing with a knife, to using said knife.

On the other hand, prob means I can't brandish a tai chi wooden sword without looking like a hooligan.

*Watches video*

*See's the Squinty Bridge across the River Clyde*

...it would be Glasgow, wouldn't it?


I'd need time to really think on it. But knife crime, especially up here in Glasgow (which I remind again, is where this video is set) is a massive issue within the UK. However I think many people need to remember that being arrested in the UK is not the same as being arrested in many other countries.

To be arrested in other places often carries the mindset of thats it, you've been convicted. But in the UK, arrests are more a process with which the individual is brought in for further investigation or an interview. Most likely that kid arrested for the russian hat was simply taken in, given a stern talking to and put on record for the police to keep an eye on before being released without charge or punishment.

Whether this is verging on a little "too much" coincidental evidence I can't say for sure in my opinion yet. But it's certianly not the "thrown in prison for one tiny piece of evidence" process that many people have been shouting.

Note I am not referring to people on this forum or above. I'm meaning more some of the youtube comments.

My solution?

Fuck with the cops -- post pictures of yourself brandishing a spoon, or a spatula, or an egg whisk, or something else Obviously Not Pointy. (Meat tenderizers might be a problem for this application, tho'.)

Can you imagine the headlines?

UK BANS PHOTOS OF PEOPLE HOLDING PIZZA STONES

It does seem to me that this is going a little overboard. However, this is probably due to those good old American notions of free speech translating to do whatever you want that have been ingrained into me since childhood.

Not to mention the whole "...shall not be infringed" thing.

Still: The opportunities for Constructive Anarchy are there.

Those aren't the only crazy laws they have.

In Britain its a legal requirement for taxis to carry a bale of hay.

Its legal for saleswomen to be topless in tropical fish stores.

Its legal to shoot a Welshman with a longbow, only after midnighton Sundays in Hereford.

Its legal to shoot a Scotsman in Cathederal Close, York, except on Sundays.

Its legal for a man to urinate in public, but only on the rear wheel of his car, and only when hes touching the vehical with his right hand.

Its illeagal to hang a bed out of a window.

Illeagal for members of Parliment to wear suits of armor in the House of Commons.

Illeagal for a woman to eat chocolates on public transportation.


Whats sad is that I'm NOT making this up. All places have strange laws.

Those sorts of 'crazy but true' laws get thrown around on a lot of websites, Krytuck. You'll notice that such sites rarely have citations of verified sources attached to them. I would guess that maybe one or two were real, obsolete laws that got overlooked, and the rest are entirely fictional, and all the various sites crib them off each other without asking if they're genuine. "You couldn't make it up!" as they say. Except yeah, you could, and people frequently do.

I think youre over-rating my imagination (which is illegal in the great nation of Kyrtuckistan), but the laws I listed were found in a book:



And if you can't trust aprofessionally published book that has a cute doggy on the cover, then who can you trust?

You forgot the one about how a police officer is duty bound to give a pregnant woman his helmet should she need to pee and no bathrooms are available.

What can I say? When I first heard that one it stuck with me just because of how bloody bizzare it is.

Mind you, the fact they have a unit dedicated to this is funny. Perhaps soon they'll make one to deal with noise complaints. And crime. And other such things that police peoples do instead of dealing with twats who think holding a kitchen knife and pulling a stupid look makes them look "cool."

I wasn't accusing you of making them up, dude. Just asking you to apply a bit of skepticism (as everyone needs to do) :) There's a podcast I listen to, Skeptics With a K, and they have a segment where the host Mike reads out a 'fact' from a published book from his childhood called 'The Fantastic Book of Facts', and the others have to try to guess/discern whether it's a 'Fantastic Fact' or 'Fantasy Fact'. Mike researches each fact ahead of time to find out if it's traceable as being true or not. Many of them turn out to be urban myth and folklore with little in the way of verifiable evidence, collected and written down as 'fact'. So yes, published books can be full of just as much bullshit as websites. I don't know how well-researched or verified or sourced your book is of course. And that doggy does look trustworthy, you have a point.

How badly do people love to misinterpret information?

I could make some incredibly snarky and condescending remarks about the United States and it's legal system.

But that'd be political. So I won't.

I meant anyone in general, not just the UK or America.

Bound to happen in a Lawful Society -- most folks don't understand in most cases it's easier to adapt an existing law (for ex: "Identity Theft" laws are superfluous -- it's Theft; the person has something which does not belong to him; The End) than create a whole new one.

As to "law cruft": There was a big one in New York City a few years ago. Ford Motor Co. announced it would be ending production of the Crown Victoria -- a V8-powered rear-wheel-drive four-door sedan. The cab companies shit themselves, saying "now we won't be able to buy new cabs to replace the ones we wear out". NYC's government said, "That's ridiculous -- there's all sorts of suitable cars out there". The cab-co.s then pointed out NYC had a law requiring all cabs to be V8-powered rear-wheel-drive four-door sedans. End result: NYC quickly moved to revoke the law in question; which is why now a "cab" in NYC can be a sedan, coupe, minivan, or whatever. (Aside: Someone did some checking, and determined the cab law had been written using the specs for a NYC Police Car -- which means either: The person writing the law was Really Lazy, or: At some point, NYC's gov't thought it might need a whole shitload of auxiliary Police Cars....)

The "taxis must carry a bale of hay" law was legitimate, BTW, insofar as that taxis once upon a time were pulled by horses. As a number of taxi companies were neglecting to properly feed and care for their animals, the law was passed as an animal cruelty prevention measure.

Most of these kinds of laws actually turn out to be real --- but very old, often-repealed, and specific to a type of issue no longer existing in modern society. Taking them out of context and suggesting that they're still active remains a source of sure-fire laughs for booksellers.

EDIT: There is an active Ohio law regarding "equine activity" which in part governs the riding of a zebra or alpaca, "including, but not limited to, dressage, a hunter and jumper show, grand prix jumping...a rodeo...barrel racing, polo, steeplechasing...hunting, packing, and recreational riding". Almost as funny: "Equine activity does not include horse or mule racing".

Referenced in Gibson v. Donohue as "R.C. 2305.321. Immunity as to equine activity risks". http://asci.uvm.edu/equine/law/cases/laws/gibson.htm

The first sentence of the court's opinion in the case: "There are no zebras in this case; but there could be."

Anything in there about Unicorns? :)

In Florida it's illegal to walk around with an ice cream cone in your back pocket.
In Alaska it's illegal to shove a moose out of a moving airplane.
In Alabama it's illegal to have sex in a motel room between the two beds.
Sex toys are outlawed in Texas.
Also, in Texas you can shoot a man for leaning on your fence, but you can't shoot him in the back.
In Washington state, bestiality is not illegal, surprisingly.
the Montana State constitution has in it wording that makes it justified to secede from the union if the federal government outlaws firearms.Alaska is constitutionally forbidden from secession because it was purchased from Russia, while Hawaii has been given a free pass to secede due to the nature of its acquisition.

a little aside: if it were illegal here to pose in pictures holding weapons I'd have been imprisoned long ago what with all the pictures I took during my deployment, in training, of the various AR15s I've built, and that video I have of me throwing my tomahawk around.


on the freedom of speech thing: threatening gestures are not free speech. Free speech covers the open exchange and discussion of whatever without fear of violence or squelching.
to clarify: it's perfectly okay for someone to say "i think that jews are terrible people and smell like money". this is protected speech, and while it is unpopular and open to being mocked and the person stating it better have something more to back it up than hearsay lest he be rightfully labeled a moron, it is illegal to harm, squelch, or threaten said individual.

if someone were to say "you are a jew and i want to kill you" then he would not be protected under free speech as he is threatening you and possibly attempting to intimidate you. this is not a, opinion or something able to be debated, this is a threat and noting more. just like the old argument about yelling "fire" in a movie theater. it is not covered because it is not an idea or position on anything.

this also applies to gestures such as looking mean while holding a knife. not free speech, but not exactly illegal.

but then, In America, the cops can't drag you off to the pokey for "precrime" simply because you had a balaclava, a few old shell casings, an air rifle, and a picture of a knife in your house. so there's certainly something to be said for the disparity in perspective.

Due to being an American who routinely walks around with a .45 pistol on my belt I'm really having trouble grasping the merit of needing a background check to buy eating utensils. but at the same time I'm laughing hysterically from seeing teenagers barely off their mother's tit holding kitchen knives like they thought they could scare someone. and then there's the heavy handed yet limp-wristed police reaction.

lulz all around, really.

I guess it's just "different cultures." Despite similarities, British and American cultures are vastly different. Over here, the idea of legal gun purchasing in the same manner of America is a completely insane idea with no benefits. While in America, there's a huge (although I realise not complete) mindset that it's the "right" thing.

Tis a strange world, but we all gotta look with understanding eyes to all sides of it.

I've been waiting for months for word back on my shotgun permit. I've heard they don't like giving them to people my age, but there's a few people in the family with them. I've heard in America its nice and simple, a background check and a waiting period.

It's much the same in Australia. Rifles are tools for farmers, but that's about the only acceptable reason to have a gun unless you're a cop or in the army.

depends on the state:

in California guns are evil engines of babykilling that warp your mind and can drive you to kill because evidently all guns are imbued with lesser deamons of Khorne.

in NY the horribly corrupt state legislature HATES the idea that they can't control every aspect of their subjects' lives and make evey effort to deny them their most basic civil liberties. long guns are available with a background check and three day wait, but pistols need a permit just to own.

in D.C. it's overwhelmingly "liberal" and the population is pushing up against 80% black. Liberals may love to talk about how they love "diversity" but they are terrified of an armed black man.

In Texas it's not uncommon to see pickup trucks come with gun racks already installed at the dealership.

then here in Tennessee you can get whatever you want with a background check. I bought several guns when I got home from Iraq, and on the day I tested for my carry permit I forgot my pistol at home the night before since I wound up spending the night at my boyfriend's. so I bought a snub nosed .38 to take the test with.

that gun is awesome, btw.

in Florida, Tennessee, and Arizona there's legislation in the state senates to allow concealed carry on college campuses since the prevention of shooting sprees is exactly why the whole carry permit idea was implemented in the first place.



and of course all over the south you can pretty much expect EVERYONE to have at least a gerber multitool in their pocked. I personally carry a benchmade spring assist, and when I'm out for a walk in the woods I might carry my Cold Steel SRK or Kabar Blackhawk.

guns and knives aren't toys and some people shouldn't be allowed to have them for the same reason your mom hides the good scissors every time your aspie cousin comes over to visit, but denying EVERYONE weapons only serves to empower the violent and dangerous elements of society.

which brings us full circle back to the prick teenagers posing with steak knives to look scary and the hysterical reaction police and parents have to it.

I realise I may not be a mod, and your post was informative and politely written, but I just want to call out that we maaaay be approaching a discussion here that might be infringing on the general "no politics/gun discussions" area of the forum. I wouldn't recommend us following that line of thought much longer.

So to swing things backwards again.

I'm intrigued as to what facebook's reaction is at all. Usually they tend to be pretty vocal about this stuff.

Probably a large, but ultimately ineffectual, protest along the lines I suggested above -- large groups of people posting pics of themselves wielding kitchen implements (prob. knives, but also including forks, spoons, spatulas, and the like) in order to try to overwhelm the "picture cops".

I agree entirely, and did what I could to keep the politics and gun/weapon talk within the scope of the overall topic. I also made the attempt to swing back to topic and explain how the post was relevant to it with that last sentence.

the spirit of the forum policy is obviously to prevent threads from devolving into festering clusterfucks of flames and insults, and I respect the intent although it makes a great many things very difficult to talk about due to the politically charged nature of a great many things. I've been trying to avoid politics as of late but that is something that gets harder to do as government involvement expands to new sectors.

just about anything can involve political bullshit to some degree nowadays and it's important to focus more on the topic at hand whether the post in question is relevant to the overall topic.


as per the facebook community reaction; i don't rightly think anyone knows about it.

shit, I don't even know how to browse facebook or if such a thing is possible.

I had a few friends, who while they didn't carry knives themselves, knew people in their neighborhoods who did. I just wish I could carry something sharper than a bunch of keys between my fingers if I walking around Old Kent.

On the law thing: first thing Labour did on coming to power in '97 was repeal all those old laws. [/political fact] Hasn't stopped the T Mobile ads.