I was almost arrested for my spyderco endura. I was at a bar one night, not even drunk. I was working on it, but at the time the incident happened I was no where close. In hindsight, it looks like the cop really took advantage of me, but I ended up staying out of jail.
It was St. Pattys day, so the bar was packed. The line for the restroom was over 20 minutes long, since one of them had broken earlier in the evening, and I had to go to the bathroom. Well, not the smartest thing to do, but I went outside and found a dark corner. Just as I am about to finish, I get spotlighted. The officer walks up to me and tells me to finish up what I am doing. I finish and turn to talk to him, and he starts going about how drunk I am and that he can take me to jail for it and indecent exposure. He then sees the clip in my pocket and asks what I need a knife for. I tell him I always carry it because you never know when you will need a knife. He then asks me to pull it out, sees its a spyderco and remarks how nice a knife it is. He opens it, lays it across his palm, and behold, the blade is longer than his palm is wide. He then goes on to tell me that my knife is illegal and hassles me about why I need a knife that big. All through this I stay pretty calm, so he winds up saying that he can see Im a reasonable guy, so he will let me go. He said that he had to take my knife though. He then walks off. I never got his name or a reciept for the knife. I guarantee that officer is sporting a very well maintained Endura right now.
That night, I was just glad not to go to jail, but went home and looked up the Tennessee laws on the matter. Carrying with intent to go armed is carrying a knife with a blade whose length exceeds 4 inches. My next stop was Spyderco's website. Endura blade length- 3.96 inches. The officer definetly had no right to take my knife, probably didn't follow procedure in taking my knife, and probably never turned it in. Lesson learned, dont do stupid things at bars, but be extra careful to know your rights so you dont end up with no knife and no recourse, as I didn't know his name or have any proof that he ever took the knife.
As a funny side note, one of the guys I was with went out at the same time as I did. He was not seen, and saw me having the conversation with the officer. He went back in the bar, got the girls we were with and they all came outside to watch me get arrested.