They have to prove intent. In Aus it’s called “going equipped to steal”. In the US it’s called “possession of burglary tools”. In some cases intent can, by statute, be inferred from possession, but that’s rare. More commonly, intent is proven when you are found in somebody else’s hotel room carrying lockpicks, or are found carrying stolen goods, and it’s an added charge.
Of course it’s an actual crime, which means that they can arrest you, charge you, lock you up, and let the courts decide later if you had intent or not.
I don’t get it. You’re suggesting to lift a restriction because the problem addressed by the restriction is somewhat under control (possibly as a result of the restriction)?
A quick search of “UK sword fight” brings up many reports violent incidents in the UK. Usually it is teenagers involved in turf wars between gangs of rival drug dealers. Sometimes it is random attacks by deranged individuals. Politicians at public consultations have been recent targets. From time to time there are politically motivated terrorist attacks by ISIS or some other group. Every society has some level of violent crime. They differ in how they deal with it.
There are effective laws that restrict firearm use and they have wide support in the UK. Possession of an illegal firearm is 5 years in prison. On the police have guns and then only for special emergencies. These firearms policies are effective, but then you have to deal with criminals arming themselves with the next type of weapon: knives.
After particularly bloody knife fights, there is usually a call for restrictions on the kind of fighting knives that appeal to teenagers, like those seen on popular zombie killing video games. There are regular amnesties where knives can be handed in to police with no questions asked. Such bans are probably the easiest solution for politicians. Bans on some types of fighting knife maybe help mothers who fear that their son is getting ready to go into battle. Aspiring teenage ninjas are not going to impress other gang members with kitchen cutlery.
Dealing with the underlying causes of drug crime, dangerous mental health conditions and terrorism are difficult social and political problems to which there is no easy answer.
There is a long history in the UK of scare stories about martial arts weapons and like, driven by the tabloids leading to bans on oddly specific, and not particularly dangerous weapons (or even the descriptions of said weapons in childrens media being banned).
Nunchuks (and other “ninja” weapons) were the bete noir in my childhood (helped by a big dose of anti-asian racism in the tabloids). Leading to the nunchuk scenes in Bruce Lee movies being edited out in officially released video tapes (making you the coolest possible kid if you had access to a bootleg copy with the scenes intact). And the even more ridiculous fact that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had to be called the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles.
Though as a resident of the US now if I had to choose an ridiculously irrational attitude towards weapons I’d take that over what we have in the US at the moment
I’m reasonably confident that people can get arrested in some US states for brandishing a sheathed Bowie knife. Certainly waving a sword around will get you in trouble, though the UK perp’s behavior fell well short of that. That said, news articles about the perp’s behavior and presentation at the time of his arrest lacked detail. Whether he was disturbing the peace is a matter of conjecture for me.
The law, or at least the perception of the law, in the United Kingdom is that public possession of weapons is illegal, so indeed you can’t go to, e.g., a British Walmart (mutatis mutandis) carrying a random sword, sharp stick, rifle, whatever, without getting into loads of trouble, which is what happened to that dude.
In the article it says he claims he bought it as a fidget toy to keep his hands busy. Seems a fairly reasonable assumption that he might have been twirling it around or something.
Whilst it’s definitely illegal to carry a six inch blade around in public ‘without a good reason’, if he’d just had the thing sheathed and stashed in his pocket or a bag, nothing would have happened because nobody would have known.
What I mean is that it’s practically guaranteed he wasn’t simply carrying it, but was also doing something else to draw attention to that fact.
