Quote Originally Posted by User View Post
Thank you for your insightful comments. I think I now have a better grasp of the sentiment for carrying sgian dubhs in Scotland. I never considered that carrying other sharp items could negatively impact the opportunity to lawfully carry a sgian dubh.
It is par for the course with UK legislators.

They hear of some psycho running amok with a machette, and rush to ban all bladed weapons to protect the innocent - or so they say.

What happens in reality (as we have seen with ligitimate sporting guns of all kinds in reactionary gun legislation) all knives are banned, but the yobbo thugs carry on fighting and stabbing the same as ever.

Chefs, butchers and other legitimate 'blade' crrying professionals successfully pointed out the idiotic thinking to the laws, and had them changed accordingly. Likewise, Sikhs (who carry a kirpan concealed as part of their religion) and Scots with their sgians also won concessions for logical reasons, but being protected under the law and acceptable to an over-zealous plod are two wildly different things.

I know of kiltie in Scotland who has ever been challenged for having a sgian dubh, but I have heard of it in England - it even happened to a Scottish Member of Parliament when on official duties. So you never know.

There was a controversial case not so long ago, where UK police tasered and spray-gassed a blind man, and beat him to the ground with truncheons. The police proclaimed themselves heroes for having averted a massacre, because the poor blind man's cane could have been a sword..! In their defence, the officers concerned said they thought the cane was a weapon because of they way the poor man was 'waving it about'.

Imagine their reaction to a real sword and dirk...