wanderer wrote on Jul 12^th, 2013 at 4:44pm:


There are times when it can be illegal, but it is only usually if you carry a large knife or other offensive weapon. I only carry a penknife, Swiss army style with a blade length of 2.4 inches. It is legal to have a penknife or multitude on you, although it may not be in certain areas of Northern Ireland and restricted areas like airports and Buckingham palace etc. They fall into the same category of self defence weapons as defence spray, which women sometimes carry on their way through cities late at night. It is basically a less powerful version of the pepper spray the police use. Obviously some discretion is used, for instance if someone walked past and told you to give them your hat, it likely wouldn't be considered reasonable to then stab the hat thief. It would be better to try and talk him out of it, if you believe yourself to be able to stand up to him then do so. But it also may be better to give him the hat and then immediately ring the police and give all the details you can of where he is, what he looks like, his age etc. If you ring us as soon as he is out of earshot, we can probably find him pretty quickly if we know what area he's been in very recently. Even if you think you can stand up to him, it is probably better just to give him the hat because it's impossible to tell what weapon her might have concealed or if he has some friends with him that you can't see. One point though, if someone tries to kidnap you, put up as much a fight as you can. Make a lot of noise, fight for your life. There have been a lot of cases in America where someone has been kidnapped, and then the kidnapper has kept them alive, locked in their house and tortured them. When this happens, there is no real way the police can know, unless someone sees the kidnapper doing it. One man in America was kidnapped and then tied up in a basement and tortured for 3 months before he died of malnutrition. Obviously only fight for your life if you are sure your getting kidnapped. And remember, in the UK, if it's an emergency, dial 999. If it's not an emergency, or you want to report a less urgent crime that isn't happening anymore, dial 101.

Nominally it's the Anerican position, too. But that doesn't keep you from going through lengthy, costly, and stressful court proceedings where that proof and witness testimony is verified and/or refuted.

Quote:


They're really solid and dense.  I think they would do as much damage as a rock of comparable weight.

I've never slung one, but I have a bunch to juggle with, and we took them to a softball field to do some batting and fielding practice.

Wow!  They really travel, and they REALLY bounce.  A normal softball slows down on each bounce, but these seemed to speed up.  Everybody ended up scared of them, and we lost a few that bounced out of the field into the woods.