On Thu, 9 Jun 2022 at 10:56, tom petch <daedulus@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 09/06/2022 00:15, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
> Some of you will remember the new subject line from a thread on USENET in
> the wake of the last school shooting in the UK, the Dunblane massacre.
> Among the participants in what was known as 'the gun nut road show' was one
> Timothy McVeigh. As in the same McVeigh who murdered 168 people shortly
> after with a fertilizer bomb.
>
> So I thought I would just to remind people that IETF 115 is in London where
> private ownership of most firearms is strictly forbidden except on the
> direct authorization of the Home Secretary.
>
> The issue of venue safety is a legitimate concern in deciding where to hold
> meetings. While the security situation in the US is not the worst in the
> Americas, I think it highly unlikely that we would hold a meeting in any of
> the cities that are considerably worse.
I think it worth pointing out that in the UK, the carrying of knives, or
other bladed weapons, is also a criminal offence. Last time, some IETF
participants did not realise that and lost their weapons.
In some parts of London, although not where the IETF meets, knife crime
among the young is a serious problem, a greater cause of mortality than
guns or cars or drugs.
I feel it's worth clarifying a couple of statements in this thread that could otherwise be taken incorrectly - I hope Philip and Tom will forgive my pedantry, but happy memories of discovering Mark Crispin's misconceptions over UK laws suggests that people often misunderstand the situation here in the UK if the detail is omitted.
Private ownership of firearms in the UK is entirely legal, and depending on the firearm classification, you just need a certificate (which, more or less, says you're not a loony, you've a use for the weapon, and somewhere sensible to keep it) - this is managed by the local police force, and not the Home Sec directly. It's unusual for anyone to have anything but a shotgun, and in London, anything at all - where I live, though, two of my neighbours have a shotgun certificate, and at least one of them had rifles at one point. Carrying firearms openly is sufficiently unusual that even around here, a police Armed Response Unit will appear as if from nowhere even if they're simply visible on the back seat of a car. But note you're unlikely to obtain the paperwork quickly, and not at all if you're not resident. The firearms laws cover both more and less than the obvious - PAVA spray, for example, is also covered by Section 5 and is therefore banned entirely in private ownership, but a semi-automatic .22 rimfire rifle is not.
Carrying knives is also entirely legal, though knives with blades above a certain length (3 inches, or 7.5cm) that do not fold will automatically be assumed to be a weapon by default. The definition for "folding" is that there cannot be a locking mechanism, so my multitool, for example, cannot be carried routinely. Obviously I do carry that about when I need it somewhere else, and if I can demonstrate that "reasonable excuse" I'm not going to be arrested.
The problem is that carrying *anything* "for defence" is not, and you'll need a very legitimate excuse for anything that could be used as a weapon. So if you happen to be a chef travelling to a job, go for it - but if you think you can carry one of those "tacticool" stabby pens "because it's a pen", it's worth planning a lengthy stay at Her Majesty's Pleasure into your trip. This also covers gang members carrying screwdrivers, hoping to side-step the knife laws by pretending to be going to fix something. Or, indeed, someone.
There are variations in these laws in some parts of the UK - you can in some cases own a handgun for personal protection in Northern Ireland, but not elsewhere, for example.
Finally, yes, there are parts of London (and other cities) where knife crime is an ongoing issue amongst the young. However, this almost exclusively between gangs in deprived areas - where this spills over outside of these gangs or the areas, it's headline national news. Also, these are isolated pockets - there are entire countries where the leading cause of death in children is firearms, the UK is very much not one of them.
Dave.
