mote absolutely understands the law, addie is creating and moving goalposts to support their tirade. The person I was responding to made a ludicrous statement, to which I refuted with observable evidence (laws).
It is obvious to any reasonable person I was referring to and talking about the common folding pocket knife, not kitchen knives or other fixed bladed implements. I may not have written “folding” and it was implied, that could have been better. Your choice to move to some other mental place to complain is your choice, not mine.
But let’s get to the meat of your off-kilter tirade - what I have stated and am referring to is an anomaly in the world of knives; the locking mechanisms (there are several designs) on a 3" folding pocket knife is there for user safety. If you have owned and operated pocket knives under force, they can and will twist in your hand. And without a locking mechanism, they can and will snap shut on your fingers and slice you up. I know this personally. It fucking hurts.
I am very aware the UK has banned such an object because they believe it will curtail knife violence. I feel this is trading an actual proven safety feature for “feel good” nanny law that probably don’t matter to someone intent on committing knife violence. It only harms the honest user of the pocket knife who wishes to not mutilate their fingers.
A three-inch blade is allowed provided it doesn’t lock in place; as long as it just folds away (like a swiss army knife) then it’s fine. Three-inch butterfly knife will get you in a lot of bother, though.
You go from from a nice pocket knife to a fucking butterfly knife, like holy shit there’s an entire world of cutlery between those two and you jump to some crazy extreme with butterfly knives. Those knives are actually curtailed by laws of their own (switchblades, butterfly knives and other “assisted open” cutlery is vastly illegal in many places in the world) as they tend to overlap with gang violence laws (“public nuisance” in the legal chapters). This is not the same mechanisms or designs as safety locks on a folding pocket knife used by regular people doing regular things.
The UK outlaws the safety knife (it’s designed for cutting seat belts, smashing a car window and other save your life things) I keep in my vehicle next to a flashlight, because it’s longer than 3" and has a locking mechanism. You are not using this thing for knife violence. (search “spyderco rescue knife”) But, this tool is illegal in the UK because of it’s features.
So yeah, I understand the law. But I also understand knives and cutlery as I’m interested in the steels used, so just happen to learn other things along the way. And to be fair, other countries have just as stupid laws about other things, including my own. I’m specifically discussing this one law and it’s irrelevant it’s the UK for purposes of discussion of the law itself banning a safety feature.
I have not tried/used it (yet?), but the kids are building Radicle for this very purpose. It gets a fair amount of techie coverage (blogs, comments, etc.) but sits in unique space compared to, say, Forgejo (classic self-hosted git).