When I lived in the Kalalau Valley on Kauai I always had an 8’ fillet knife in a sheath on my belt. Was this illegal? Are knives over 3-1/2" illegal to have on a belt everywhere? Australia?
Thread title spelling oops!
I’d have to ask why you’d want to but…
There have been attempts at introducing national weapons laws pertaining to knives, clubs etc. in Australia but they’ve failed for a number of reasons that form a debate all by themselves. As things stand all states have their own laws and I’m only familiar with Queensland’s.
Here it is unlawful to carry any bladed implement (knife, spear, sword, machete) in a public place, whether concealed or openly displayed, without (and this is the hilarious part) a reeeaaallly good reason. That’s not the legal jargon but that’s what it translates to in common English. There are no specific interpretations of what constitutes a good reason so unless you’re stupid enough to admit you’re carrying your knife for defensive/offensive purposes you’re pretty much right. There was a website somewhere that I saw that specifically addressed the issue and had about 500 legitimate reasons for carrying a knife. The few I remember are things like cutting tourniquets for snakebites, trimming broken shoelaces and opening condom packets. What this means is that anyone can carry a knife at any time if they have half a brain.
The only cases I’ve heard of anyone being prosecuted were one instance where a man chased off some teenaged vandals wrecking his car with a machete, and a high school kid who was convicted for carrying a swiss army knife because he told the police he had it to defend himself. I’m sure there have been others but it all boils down to if you have a legitimate reason available to tell the police you can carry your knife.
There was at one time a legal restriction on owning double edged blades but since they seem to be available from most shops these days I assume the law has been repealed.
There is another law that prevents anyone going armed in public in a manner likely to cause fear, and that applies to any weapon. It just depends where you are and what you are doing but if the weapon is appropriate to its environment/not visible and you are not acting in an intimidating manner you can get away with your Crocodile Dundee act, at least in Queensland. You’ll see people walking around with filleting knives hanging from their belts on any beach or headland on any weekend and it’s not uncommon to run into them in baitshops, corner stores etc. So you can carry a belt knife in Queensland, but if you’re not actually fishing you’ll look like a bit of a dickhead. I personally just stick with my pocketknife.
There are no specific restrictions on knife size in Queensland and I can go out at any time and buy anything from small pen knife to a 5 foot katana.
NSW used to have laws relating to the size of the blade.
As our current laws stand, it’s illegal to be in possession of a knife (or other blade) outside of your own property unless you can demonstrate a damned good reason for having it - one which is related to fairly immediate use in your occupation or a recreational activity.
In practise, you’re fairly unlikely to be busted for carrying a craft knife or razor blades unless you have come to police attention for some other reason, but as far as “sporting” type knives go, if you had one in a public place and the police became aware of it, it’s extremely unlikely that you wouldn’t be charged.
It’s essentially illegal to carry a weapon or a potential weapon in NSW without extremely good reason - we have specific laws relating to blades and guns, but there’s a webpage somewhere which displays a range of other items which have been seized under our weapon laws. Our laws differ to Queensland’s in that there is the burden of proof that you’re carrying a weapon/potential weapon for a bona fide reason is much tougher.