Reply #28: It's crazy, I know.....

[Pert_UK]

but in the UK we've decided that we're the kind of society where we don't really want each other wandering round armed to the teeth. We like living in a society where one doesn't feel the need to arm oneself before leaving the house, and as such certain weapons are banned entirely, others can't be carried unless you have a good reason.

In the UK, a good reason for carrying a knife is that you are reasonably likely to require it in order to perform some duty (e.g. fishing, camping, lending it to a friend etc.).

As such, you could carry a baseball bat down to the park for a game of softball, but you couldn't just generally have one on your person because you'd risk being charged with carrying an offensive weapon.

Moreover, you've done that thing again haven't you? The one where you assume that bearing arms / self-defense actually IS an inalienable right, it's just that some countries such as err......well most of them actually, somehow manage to overlook this "self-evident" right.

What you're saying is, "This is a right that the UK fails to recognise", whereas the actual case is that the UK doesn't consider bearing arms to be a right. It's not that we're too stupid to see it, we've thought about it and decided that it isn't.