Sadly these laws have absolutely nothing to do with public safety or criminal activity, they are 100% to have total and complete control of YOU. I feel sad for yall as an American with rights to bear arms. Honestly if I lived in Australia I'd be getting my passport together to leave and move to America. I seen what they did to yall a couple years ago.... they never tried that here. Sadly the brits fell down the same path, you cannot give them an inch or they'll take it all and you'll quickly look like Australia. Nothing against you guys that live there, my empathy is with you. *Distasteful and politcal comment removed
My God! Why do they even allow you in public?
Its getting sad, but that's the way it is, and I can't change it.Perhaps one day, things will get more sensible.But as long as we have idiots running around with machete and stabbing people with kitchen knives.Small harmless pocketknives will alwyas be a soft target.
Laws are used by the police at thier discretion.I had a few young cops give me a car search the other day, for having resting crim face, they asked if I had any weapons...I was honest and said there was a folder in my pocket, and likely a multitool in my bag....they didn't bat an eye or even ask about it. If you treat or talk about a knife as weapon, they will see it as a weapon and act accordingly.
Tradesmen will have to register all tools with serial numbers and carry authorization to use them.
We actually had a case here some years ago where 2 carpenters got fined for wearing knives in public. They had walked to a nearby cafe for lunch without stripping off the knives from their tool holding clothing. It was recogniced that the knives were for work and that they had the required civil use of the knives, but the lunch break was not considered work. Not sure how that would go down in Australia, but to me that fine was a lack of common sense.I can only say that under current laws lots of what I and others did when we were younger would be illegal today. And yet, I'm pretty sure there are more stabbings today than back then. There is certainly a problem somewhere, but restricting knife access seems to be going after the sympoms instead of actual underlaying causes.
Valkie is a being *slightly* histrionic with the serialised paint scrapers - but yes broadly australian state governments take big leaps with laws after every incident.What's more frustrating is the populist methods - a politician will stand in the house of representatives and make a statement along the lines of "There is no reason a lawful person should have a knife on public transport!"and everyone cheers "here! here!"but...that's not true is it?Some people catch the train to work, and they might have a lawful reason for a knife - tradies, chefs, students (who need to eat lunch, but do not have access to a "staff room" at their place of education), backpackers (tourism is one of our major exports....and any sensible traveler has a knife).There's actually a bunch of lawful reasons why someone could have a knife...but even that 45 seconds of desktop analysis is not conducted when it comes to driving legislative change in the wake of traumatic news story.Without getting too into the political weeds - as a sort of "cultural explanation" for interested parties - the Australian States (Less the territories, because they are the "fun states" and generally have the least restrictive laws, not just in terms of knives, but for everything) - basically operate on a "who can be seen to be doing the most policing" platform - so every year they "tighten up" a Law about something or another to ensure they are "delivering safety". Then the other states find out, and "tighten up" their laws to "Bring them into alignment with other states" and so on....So, obvious Knife Laws is a subject near and dear to the hearts of members here, in context, it might be worth considering that Australian states have on-the-spot fines for loitering, jaywalking, and even swearing.For your safety.
Im an old F#$t and I still remember the old days.
One Moment Please: An Country where every second Animal trys to kill you bans ? So they get a worst Knive Law than Germany in the End..
To be fair that there are still schools and areas around where knives are just tools like any other - more so in rural areas though. There are still kindergardens around where the kids use knives as part of their outdoors activities from they are 4-5 years old or so.More to the point. The law is the law here but how it is interpreted seems to vary wildly depending on region and situational setting. That might be more even in Australia? Having visited Australia a few times I reckon common sense might be more common than this thread give it credit for?
In a town with large ice issues for example, you don't tend to find cops pulling people up for jaywalking.