When Cultures Collide. Teaching a European how to shoot.

It will seem stick to Americans but is similar the a lot of countries.

Quote. It's illegal for a shop to sell any kind of knife to someone under 18.

It's also illegal for shops to sell imitation guns or air weapons to anyone under 18-years-old, or to sell realistic imitation guns to anyone.

You'll be committing an offence if you buy any of these items. Possessing a knife or firearm (whether it's yours or not) is illegal and can result in a prison sentence.

Some knives are illegal for even adults to buy. The below are all categorised as offensive weapons and are completely banned:
•Flick knives - also called ‘switchblades’ or ‘automatic knives’.
•Butterfly knives
•Disguised knives - in which the blade is hidden in something like a belt buckle or fake mobile phone.

You can find out more about these and other types of illegal knives on the DirectGov website.

Things to know


•It is illegal to carry a knife or a gun, even an imitation one.
•If you are caught with a knife or a gun, regardless of whether you say it was for your own protection or you were carrying it for someone else, you will be arrested and prosecuted.
•Possession of a knife can carry a prison sentence of up to 4 years even if it's not used.
•There's a minimum 5-year sentence for carrying a gun if you're over 18. If you're under 18, you could still go to prison.
•If you stab somebody and they die, you will face a life sentence and will serve a minimum prison sentence of 25 years.
•Causing the death of someone with a gun carries a life sentence and you will serve a mandatory 30-year prison sentence.
•If someone is injured or killed by a knife or gun in your presence, even if you're not the one using the weapon, you too could be prosecuted. You could be sent to prison for murder in what is referred to as ‘joint enterprise’.

Remember - the law is clear - if you choose to carry a weapon, you put your future in danger. If you don't take it with you, it won't be used.
 
Are there any exceptions given for self defense Manta?

Also the knife clause, does that apply to all knives or just knives over a certain length?
 
I just play dumb & ask questions like "Is this the pointy end where the cartridge comes out"?
(I usually get a better odds if cash money is involved that way):D
 
I had a couple of English friends who were planning on flying to "America", renting a car & driving from New York to California & back in a week! That's a hell of a vacation!
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Vacation, my foot!
That's one helluva fast car! ;)

BP
 
I bet this is the main reason why there are no "firms" in American professional sports. British football hooligans look forward to engage their opponents with clubs and pipes. Fully expecting to get shot and killed in self defense would take all the fun out.
 
I was an instructor at our gun club for corporate groups. They would come from all over the world, most of whom had never shot a gun before. This was shootin' clay birds, both trap & sporting clays. There was a lot of laughin' & gigglin' goin' on when they broke a bird. Of course, there were at times some people who were good shots.

We never had an accident, but I stayed very close to the shooters. About the nearest, was a Chinese man that spoke no English at all. He was shootin' trap. He was leanin' on his shotgun like a crutch with the barrel in the mud. I happened to catch it & cleaned the mud out of the barrel, but I could not explain to him what would happen if he had fired that gun.
 
Are there any exceptions given for self defense Manta?

Also the knife clause, does that apply to all knives or just knives over a certain length?
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You can't carry a knife or any other weapon. But if you are attacked and feel your or your family's life is at risk then you can use anything that comes to hand. If they come into your house and there is a gun or knife then you can use it killing the individual if necessary. PS N Ireland is the only regain in the UK that self defence is seen as a reason for carrying a firearm. But there have to be certain circumstances before you will be allowed to carry a firearm for seal defence. As i said most people in the UK wouldn't know one end of a firearm from the other. But is more to do with people not being interested in firearms than them being hard to get.

American professional sports. British football hooligans look forward to engage their opponents with clubs and pipes. Fully expecting to get shot and killed in self defense would take all the fun out
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That's rarer in the UK now than it used to be. And was more in England than other UK regions.
 
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Good explanation of UK self defence laws from Manta.

Fortunately football hooliganism is not anywhere near what it once was in the UK - though there have been a few unfortunate incidents just recently. Football hooligans traditionally tend to embrace the "lifestyle", lethal weapons have never really been part of that, even down to the fact that in the bad old days in the 70s and 80s they generally wore tennis shoes rather than steel toed boots when they kicked each other's heads in. Violence involving weapons has fairly seldom been part of the culture, "Millwall Bricks" (repeatedly folded newspaper soaked in beer or urine to form a surprisingly hard bludgeon) aside, of course.

I sort of think it wouldn't be worth it for those people to carry a 'real' weapon, when doing so will land them in prison if caught, for what is essentially a weekend activity they do with their mates - particularly as there was an excellent chance of not getting caught otherwise, before the advent of CCTV, anyway.

There is definitely often an assumption that a European won't have a clue. Hardly surprising, of course, and always nice to dispel that idea.
 
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