Chilling details from the report in The Guardian:
A man who had returned home from his allotment with a trug of vegetables and gardening tools strapped to his belt was arrested by armed police, after a member of the public said they had seen “a man wearing khaki clothing and in possession of a knife”.Samuel Rowe, 35, who works as a technical manager at a theatre, had come back from his allotment in Manchester earlier this month and decided to trim his hedge with one of his tools, a Japanese garden sickle, when police turned up on his doorstep...The tools he had on his belt, he said, were a Niwaki Hori Hori gardening trowel in a canvas sheath, and an Ice Bear Japanese gardener’s sickle.When he was arrested, Rowe said, the officer pulled the trowel out of its sheath, and said: “That’s not a garden tool.”“I said it is, because it was in the Niwaki-branded pouch that you get at garden centres,” Rowe said...Rowe said police had questioned him on whether he was “planning on doing something” with the tools, and he said he was also asked to explain what an allotment was.“[I had] to explain in very basic terms what an allotment is to this guy,” he said. “So it didn’t fill me with a lot of confidence that I was going to be let off.”..Rowe said he was interviewed without legal representation as officers had been unable to reach a solicitor, and after spending several hours in custody he said he accepted a caution so he would be released...“I shouldn’t have been arrested by armed officers. I want my caution removed, and then I’d like my gardening tools back. And if I got that, I might even like an apology off them, but I know the chances of that are next to nothing.”
FFS.
England has some wild rules around blade length. There was a "hard on crime" politician a little while ago that stated that no one needs a knife bigger than (I think) 6 inches to justify a law forbidding carrying one for any reason. My immediate thought was about the knife rack in my kitchen, and my friends who cook for a living.
ReplyDeleteThe UK has in many many many many ways much better policing than the US. However, due to the fact that they basically have a unicameral system where the majority in the House of Commons can push through whatever law they want, they do end up with some poorly-thought-through laws that can be misinterpreted by dumb cops.
ReplyDeleteThat said, in the absence of guns, knife crime is a big issue in the UK. So this law probably is an attempt to reduce knife crimes.
"many ways much better policy than the US" (of course what do we mean by many and much and better...): This would never happen in any part of the US I know of, including my own California city. Let's face it, we have reason to fear the nanny state direction, in all its wonderful guises. Say what you will about gun nuts, they're on the cutting edge of resistance to control freak culture.
DeleteAnd yet gun nuts love Trump and support his push for dictatorship.
DeleteAnd yet, weapon phobic loafer-wearing urban-centric nanny liberals, who never have any use for guns, knives or farm implements/garden tools in daily life, are driving common sense oriented, especially male rural voters into the arms of the Trumpian tribe for the simple reason that this appears to give them a refuge from the sort of people who think adding an 11% state tax on ammo (California) is the way to make the world a safer place--or they just take joy in punishing those macho gun owners. That is, refuge from the sort of people who obsessively chip away at every liberty associated weapons, because, well, it makes 'em feel virtuous. Maybe don't blame the rise of Trump entirely on gun nuts. Not all nuts have guns.
DeleteYou're the one who used the term "gun nuts". If you want to back away from that, fine, but if you want to talk about people who taking away the liberties associated with weapons you'll have to include Trump who was in favor of a ban on bump stocks.
DeleteThis is a complicated issue and assuming you know the motives of everyone you think disagrees with you doesn't help. Have you considered that some people would like to limit access to guns because they, or people they care about, have been shot?
This is a complicated issue
DeleteNo it isn't. The rest of the world has sorted it out.
https://theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1848971668/
Yet, Americans refuse to. And in doing so, they sacrifice their children and women to the feelings of people obsessed with a grammatically ambiguous phrase written to enforce slavery. This is madness.
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1002107670/historian-uncovers-the-racist-roots-of-the-2nd-amendment
Ammosexuals that think they need unregulated guns are responsible for this carnage. There is no defense.
And don't get me started on the nonsense that Americans need guns to prevent government overreach, because it is exactly those ammosexuals that are in full support of the military harassing folks on a not-so-random street in DC.
https://bsky.app/profile/jbendery.bsky.social/post/3lwdaf6r4j22k
And as for Crowboy's argument that this drives them into Pumpkin's arms. Farage, LePen, Wilders and the AfD are showing you can assemble plenty of right-wing enthusiasm without any talk about guns, so I'm not sure that matters.
Yes, there's no question Trump is more closely aligned with Mr. Bump Stock. He knows that by cozying up to millions of people who "cling to guns and Bibles" that he can win elections. On the other hand, aloof and superior Democrats are inclined to make enemies of these people, by, well saying stuff like they "cling to guns and Bibles." Calling them deplorables, racists, misogynists and the like. People tend not to like that. When I say "gun nut" it's not meant in this mean spirit of condescension and condemnation. It's meant as a term of endearment, mostly. In general, I think too many--well most--Democrats are tone-deaf as to what comprises American culture outside their bubble. There's so much ego gratification in not being "one of those people," it's beyond imagining that we might actually figure out who those people are. Maybe cut 'em some slack. Maybe welcome them back into the party of the people--where their grandparents lived.
Delete"trug" = that long and shallow basket filled with vegies that he is holding.
ReplyDeleteEtymology related to "trough"
DeleteSpeaking as a keen UK gardener, he had it coming. The Hori Hori looks like a zombie knife (banned) and the Japanese sickle was banned during the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hellscape decades ago - this is a true fact. Stick them in a bag or something. Parading around with them on your belt is asking for trouble.
ReplyDeleteTo be clear this is what's being described as a trowel:
ReplyDeleteassets dot katogroup dot eu/i/katogroup/NSTM-6200_01_nisaku
better link here:
Deletehttps://www.niwaki.com/hori-hori/?srsltid=AfmBOoobYN_QDcHAZTGSQFxF1xZ2MnKs_K6re3P3nKmrdV19SqzSgn40#P00442-7
I have a similar tool, not Japanese and with one serrated edge. Great for lots of garden chores.