[geeks] its what you carry with you

[Scott Howard]

On Wed, Jul 07, 2004 at 07:39:10AM -0500, Brian Dunbar wrote:
> It's illegal to carry a pocket-knife in Australia?  Good Gravy, man, 
> why?

It's actually a state law, but in NSW (and I think a few other states
have similar things) it's illegal to "have custody of a knife or blade
in a public place or school, without reasonable excuse".

Now exactly what a "reasonable excuse" is is hard to define. For small
things like a Leatherman Micra you're not going to have any problems
(unless you were actually in the act of using it as a weapon or the
like), but for a 4" blade - especially one which is not part of a
Leatherman/swiss army knife/etc you're going to have trouble coming up
with a "reasonable excuse".

A lot of it depends on the situation. If you're out clubbing on a
Saturday night then no excuse is going to be good enough - get caught and
you're in trouble! If you're walking around in a pair of overalls then
no excuse is really needed. Anything in between.. well..

And of course, if you're under 16 years old then you can forget buying
yourself a knife of any form. It's illegal to sell anything beyond a
plastic knife to anyone under the age of 16 (most shops actually make it
18) - and that include cutlery!

  Scott.