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Knife dealer consultation


Greg

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Kenny, Scottish government will be releasing a consultation this week on licensing of dealers who sell/trade edged weapons. I have absolutely no clue what is proposed or if historical items will be excluded as antique. However, it might be something for you to take a look at and comment on as a shop owner.

Custodial Sentences and Weapons (Scotland) Act 2007: Licensing of Knife Dealers: A consultation

The Custodial Sentences and Weapons (Scotland) Act 2007 has given Ministers the powers to introduce a licensing scheme for knife dealers. We are consulting on the draft orders that detail how the scheme will work in practice.

Starting: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 Deadline: Tuesday, September 30, 2008

 

It will be posted below this week.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Consultations/Current

 

 

PS... they just last week closed the consultation of Historic Battlefields in Scotland. NTS seem pissed because the legislation as proposed would not protect places like Bannockburn bc we cannot actually find the battlfield and someone put a nice housing estate where w think it is. I wrote an opinion paper and sent it into the government. I'll mention more on this once the report is released by Historic Scotland.

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Hi Greg,

I had no idea this was happening ,hopefully it will come to nothing as usual they are missing the point it's not a £500 collectors item which is doing the damage but a £5 kitchen knife which can be bought anywhere.

If they had any good ideas the simple thing would be to make kitchen knifes with rounded points ,that would probably do more good than more red tape.

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  • 5 years later...

Update on this ,

 

The Scottish Government did not listen to any of the consultations. The sale of any knife with a blade length of over four inches is illegal in Scotland this includes collectors items such as daggers and bayonets but does not include kitchen knifes which are available from all supermarkets for a couple of pounds and are almost always associated with knife crime.

 

In order to sell any knife with a blade over four inches a knife dealers license is now required.Historical items will not be excluded. This involves a lot of paperwork and having an architect draw up plans of where the edged weapons are to be displayed.In light of this we have now decided to stop selling daggers and bayonets which were a major part of our business for the past 30 years.

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absolutely crazy... also really interesting to see how they handle this with internet sales... so if I order something from an English website will they now refuse to ship to Scotland?

 

I understand safety and all that but the law really goes too far in locking things down. Interesting also that they state over 4 inches is illegal for sale yet the carry law is 3 inches non-locking, so there is a spare inch that you can't use :P

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There is an interesting review paper published last year on the topic which in summary states there is no evidence knife crime occurs mainyl from non-domestic knives, infact there is no evidence that the prohibition of sales of non-domestic has any impact at all. Further the ban directly affects rural and farming areas as an unitendend consequence where most knife sales of non-domestics happen.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0042/00423287.pdf

 

Some lovely comments fromt he survey of businesses that responded:

This scheme is farcical so long as sales of domestic knives are exempt.”

“The extra costs area direct attack on our bottom line – we have received three visits from a compliance officer a sking us to continue to sell knives in exactly the same way we have done since 1857.”
“Asking mature adults to show ID and fill in name and address goes against their rights and invasion of privacy for a gardening knife! Whereas they can go to Tesco and get a carving knife, no questions!”
Do you think that this scheme has made a contribution towards reducing knife crime in Scotland?
21 respondents stated that this scheme has made no contribution towards reducing knife crime in Scotland
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we have a regular who is a retired policeman and he said in all his years in the force he has never came accross any knife crime which involved a collectors item always without exception it was a domestic knife of some sort.

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Exactly, criminals won't use collectors items, they cost way too much, even an old Soviet knife costs more than a kitchen set from Tesco!

I feel for you in Scotland, I can only hope and prey that they do not consider it here in England. Mind you, it wont stop the collectors from selling at the military events, if they can manage to sell live explosives from Russia without realising then I am sure a dagger won't be an issue.

 

I got my first HJ knife when I was about 13, my dad trusted me and I have kept that trust secure, I never have used it, only looked after it and cared for it. The knife is still in my collection with a few others, all well looked after and secured to stop unauthorized access. I am sure almost all of you had knives from a young age and never killed anyone with them! The brain-dead killers will, not the innocent population.

 

Go down a street in areas of Belgium and military shops display guns and swords in windows! One in Ypres has a Vickers machine gun sitting there. I bet if that occurred in Britain you would be attacked by armed police, crazy world. :huh:

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  • 5 years later...

The recent terror incident in London will probably spark off a new debate about knife laws and banning of all blades entirely, which will be a blow for all collectors of historical weapons.

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Unfortunately you are probably right there Fritz. The knife laws there are already kind of strange. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

It's cost me at least 30% of my turnover per year. They were told to exclude collectors items in the consultation but ignored it, and basically banned everything apart from kitchen knifes which is the main cause of knife crime.

You can apply for a licence which I did, but involves getting an architect draw up plans of where the edged weapons are to be displayed, keeping details of the buyer's name and address to give to the police and the final straw was the small print, saying if for any reason you are refused the licence the fee will not be returned and at almost £1000 this was a gamble I did not want to take.

So after six years of this law being in force, has knife crime gone down in Scotland? No it has gone up, it has made no difference at all, apart from punishing law abiding collectors. Can you still buy the criminals favorite weapon of choice the steak knife, yes easily at any supermarket for about £3  Crazy !!!          

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Yes, there was an incident about two years ago in Hamburg-Barmbek, Fühlsbüttler Straße, a man opened a big kitchen knife from it's packaging in the Edeka supermarket, and stabbed a complete stranger, for no apparent reason, he then left the shop and went on the rampage down the Fühlsbüttler Straße. Luckily he was stopped by a handfull of idealists, who grabbed chairs from a street café and wielded him off and overpowered him handing him over to the police. The man had a certain immigration background. Needless to say, the victim died as he had multiple stab wounds.

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It is sad that you seem to hear about these stories more and more nowadays. We have our share in the US as well. If you ban knives, the criminals will just find something else to use. 

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