Do you have a citation for that? Most people would not consider a 3+ inch blade a pocket knife and even then it’s not illegal if you have a good reason:
That’s a hunting knife with a belt holster. It might be popular but usually “pocket knife” means something like a Swiss Army knife which comfortably fits in a normal sized pocket.
(Nothing against Buck Knives, by the way - I have one of the first ones made in the custom knife shop 25 years ago when I developed the web UI for them. It’s just not a daily carry kind of size for most of us.)
I don't think that's true. Where I grew up everyone carried a knife like this and called it a "pocket knife", and the description on wikipedia, various stores, blogs, manufacturers, etc all use the term to refer to this sort of knife.
Good point, although I notice that they seem to top out that category at 3¾ inches so maybe part of what we’re seeing is that standards have been evolving over time to shorten the blades.
Oh, I’m very aware of that. I was just looking for examples of someone in the UK actually going to jail for carrying a normal pocket knife where they weren’t threatening people or trying to enter some kind of restricted space.
There's a huge difference between restricting people's right to defend themselves and their right to purchase shitty single use electronics that slowly kill them
That's just not true, knives are quite effective self defense tools that allow otherwise physically weaker individuals to inflict significant harm on attackers without much of any additional risk. I know that in the movies this isn't true, but that's just not a reflection of reality.
To be fair, cigarettes are worse and pipes worse still, especially 2nd hand so it kind of makes sense that everyone was happy to have vapes proliferate.
