Here’s an excerpt from the text of an email my wife got today from a Yahoo! affiliate:
“Never Pay for a Locksmith Again! This locksmith-in-a-pocket weighs just over an ounce. It fits comfortably in your hand, and opens practically any lock. Kwick Pick comes in especially handy when you’ve locked your keys in the car, or in the house. Buy one for yourself, or as a gift. We’ve knocked $15.00 off the normal price, as part of this special email
offer.”
I am hesitant to post the link. It may be a scam, and if it’s for real the illegal applications are obvious.
What do you think? Is it a scam? If it really works, should it be legal? Should this post go in General Questions or Great Debates?
If you have a lock and you pick it in your living room, I doubt very much there’s anything illegal in that.
If, however, you find yourself in an airport with a lockpick in your pocket and it is found by a security guard, and reported to a cop, you might find yourself in a world of hurt.
Also: having a lockpick doesn’t imply the ability to use it. It takes practice and skill, and a fairly high level of dexterity. A lot of people probably buy these and end up using them to clean under their toenails. A good locksmith can probably pick a lock with a safety pin and a paper clip.
Well, the “intent” bit is there specifically to prevent the law being used against locksmiths etc. , but it certainly means that merely practicing lockpicking in your own home, or opening your own locks, is not illegal. In practice, laws of this sort (which you’ll find practically everywhere in the US) get used in two circumstances:
A burglar is apprehended in circumstances where there’s no question that he intended to burgle someone, but since he was stopped before actually committing B&E, those charges cannot be brought. Instead, the the burglar may be charged with possession of burglar tools, with the intent requirement being fulfilled by the circumstances in which he was apprehended (climbing over a rear fence or whatever).
Someone (police or the prosecutor) wants to add as many charges as possible against a defendant, either for “sentence enhancement” or, more likely, as a bargaining chip.
In general, the “intent” is something that was reasonably immediately obvious - it doesn’t apply to simply ordering or possessing lockpicks with the fantasy of someday slipping someone’s lock.
In North Carolina a person possessing this tool would violate a state felony statute entitled “Possession of Burglary Tools.”
I’d be willing to bet this tool is illegal in a majority of states although I can provide no cite for this.
And like a previous poster said, picking locks is hard work. You’re actually likely to wind up paying the locksmith MORE if you get this tool than less.
There is a good chance you’ll have to pay him to come and replace a lock you’ve destroyed.
What they’re advertising is, or is a variant on, a “pick gun”. You insert the pick into the lock, put tension on the lock cylinder, and pull the trigger/push the button/whatever. Hopefully, the pick will “toss” all the tumblers up, they’ll catch at their break point on the way down, and you’ve opened the lock.
I say “hopefully” because these things never work as well as they’d like you to think. You’d do much, much better to read about how locks work, make your own set of picks, and practice practice practice. A friend of mine once purchased a cash register on surplus and tried for an hour to open the drawer with a pick gun; he shoulda called me first, it took me three seconds.
Speaking of locksmithing, we have one on the board who can surely wax philosophic on this. Osip, isn’t it?
HI Max, sorry for the delay. I just found this thread.
Wax?
I personally have no worries of the Kwik-pick ruining my buisness.
Or, producing a crime wave.
It is a tool, one that requires a good deal of practice to get good at. Most bugulars will not want to spend such time to learn. Expecially when there are quicker and more reliable to B&E.
The majority of residential lockouts (in my experience) are caused by locking knob locks. The button gets pushed or turned by accident, you go check the mail and BOOM your locked out.
I personally despise locking knoblocks on houses. The majority of them do not offer any real security, just the illusion of security. It is why I always recomend Deadbolts on all exterior doors.I personally have a key hidden in the yard in case I lose my keys.
Because I dam sure am not calling a locksmith, since I have a working relationship with them and would be teased for years about it.
I ramble.
anyway, it is a viable tool, very simiar to many of the picks I use every day at work. There may be some legal problems if your caught with it and the police want to cause some grief.
My Dad used to carry a slim jim (a device for unlocking car doors) when he worked - he drove a car-hauling truck and frequently ignition keys would be locked inside a new car and the dealer couldn’t find his copy. He stopped carrying it when some of the states he drove through made them illegal.
Didn’t slow him down much, I’ve locked my keys in my car before and watching my Dad unlock it with a coathanger was impressive. He could open most cars faster than with a key.
Why would an airport care about a lockpick? Are they sharp? Can they be used as knives? Do airports really worry about people picking locks? Are they worried about people maybe picking handcuff locks?
You always give excellent advice on locks and such Osip. I do have one question, which may not sound serious, but is:
Would it perhaps be safer to hide a couple of picks/tools in the yard, so if someone does find them they 1) don’t know what they are, and 2) even if they do, they cannot just enter your house?
I have that in my car as a spare for my garage door - a single stiff wire and a small screwdriver, which is sufficient to open my garage door, where I can then get in (and I’m so proud of myself for being to open a couple of locks - it amazes people at work when I can pick their desk locks with a paperclip and a nail file. )
When we bought our house the only lock on the front door was the knoblock; first thing I did was go out and buy a deadbolt (which actually required two trips, as the door was so thick that the locking mechanism on the first deadbolt I purchased wasn’t long enough to fit the door).
Some years later a friend who was staying with us stepped outside and closed the door before realizing he didn’t have his keys, and of course found himself locked out. When he was telling about this later, he mentioned that one of our neighbors who said he was a locksmith tried to help him get in and couldn’t pick the lock.
One of the many things I have tried to learn in life is how to pick locks. I have to report that this is evidently a lot more art than science. I can use a slim jim on a car door, although not real fast. But with two teachers, one a locksmith, and one a criminal, over dozens of years and thousands of attempts, with professional tools, and various approximations, I never successfully picked a lock.
I am therefor excluded from this particular iteration of a life of crime by lack of talent. While the loss of the opportunity doesn’t bother me all that much, it genuinely pisses me off that I can’t do this simple thing. I learned how to jimmy some types of padlocks, and have learned contempt for most types of locks from watching my two mentors open them in seconds, but I can’t pick one myself.
Tris
“Humility comes from the most unexpected places, usually in the company of humiliation.” Me
It is an art, and a science. You have to understand how the lock works, of course, but you also have to have a ‘feel’ for when the pins line up and the cylinder turns that ever-so-slight fraction and catches on the next pin…
Anthracite Thanks I am an ARTIST! I have always wanted to say that
yes, you have to learn the science, have a bit of luck and practice.
It would not be easier to hide picks in the yard, they rust unlike a brass key which tarnishes. The chances of someone coming across is remote at best. By the time you turned over every stone in the yard and dug a few inches down (just in case) You would have drowned in puppy slobber since my dogs are such big love monsters. If someone wants in they will most likely kick a door in. lurk Even I have run into a few locks on houses I cannot pick after sweating and cursing. Then comes the fun part of impressioning the lock or finding creative low damage ways of getting into the house. trisk have your locksmith friend pin up a knob lock with only two pin chambers active. when you get used to picking it open move up to three chambers. when you get to 5 start increasing the cut difference between pins.
Yeah, IIRC my friend ended up breaking one of the storm windows in the back of the house, which let him force the window open (fortunately the catch which usually prevented the window from opening more than six inches was not engaged). He replaced the broken window, of course; I have since replaced the entire window unit with insulated safety glass. I also no longer have the front door set to automatically lock when it closes, so I can’t lock myself out like he did.
So why not use the key is the only way to lock/unlock locks? With a key on the inside also, with hinges pinned and the key going with the owner, make them pass the TV out the window… LOL
I mean, I can’t get locked out of cars that have to be locked with the key. Can’t get locked out of houses that you have to use a key to lock.
By far, the most common failure of security equipment is “It wasn’t locked.”
Some burglars specialize in just trying the door, and walking away if it is locked. You spend a bit of time walking down the street, but in some neighborhoods, it’s faster than picking or breaking locks. Also doesn’t require tools.
Tris
“It was a woman drove me to drink and I didn’t even have the decency to thank her.” ~ W.C. Fields ~
Plus, you’re not really “breaking and entering”. Just entering.
But I think that if someone has enough presense of mind to make sure they have a key every time they leave, they should have enough to make sure it’s locked each time.
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