I was alarmed to discover recently that it is apparently a felony to carry my Leatherman Wave in my backpack if I'm picking up my kid from elementary school.<br><br>I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, etc., etc., but a straightforward reading of California Penal Code 626.10 yields the following:<br><br>On school grounds (K-12):<br>No locking folding knifes of ANY length.<br>No knife blade longer than 2 1/2 inches.<br><br>The Leatherman loses on both counts.<br><br>There are the obvious exceptions - if you are on school grounds and you have a tool because of your employment, for example you are an electrician and you're there to fix something it's OK, but "I just like to be prepared in case there's an earthquake" doesn't qualify.<br><br>For me, much of the value of pocket Leatherman-style tools is in the pliers, file, screwdrivers all in one handy package. I've already sent email to Leatherman's product suggestion address <mailto:mktg@leatherman.com> saying I thought there might be a market for a pocket tool that could be carried anywhere (airplanes, etc.) that didn't have any blades. I'd buy one.<br><br>Has anyone found an "airplane-approved" multi-tool that can be carried anywhere?

With all due respect to the various legal professionals that keep posting warnings here about the (admittedly) dire legal implications of our trying to take care of ourselves, this is a very fundamental conflict. Government “needs” to be “needed” to justify everything they want to do (“for your own sake”, of course), so any attempt at independence or self-sufficiency is by it’s very nature a threat to government authority. Even obeying the law itself is at best a hit-and-miss approach to staying out of trouble with the law, it’s no guarantee. As you’ve found out, you have to stay informed on the laws constantly just to see if you suddenly became a felon today, or might be one tomorrow… and often, not even the professionals who devote their whole careers to it can tell you with any certainty what’s legal and what’s not. You’ll get nailed if they want to nail you.<br><br>Specific to this subject at hand, having ANY legitimate excuse to carry a sharp implement might create a problem for them. You dying because you don’t have one does NOT create a problem for them. So, why can’t you be a good citizen and just die quietly?<br><br>Ok, enough soapbox. <br><br>Personally, I’d be very surprised if they let you on an airliner with any pair of pliers, or just about any metal object that size, for that matter. I’d be willing to bet that if you took the blades out of a Leatherman, they’d confiscate it anyway, and you aren’t getting it back. Remember that they were confiscating nail clippers, plastic knitting needles, nail files and tweezers at one point.. and I’d bet some still are. They've never been at all uniform in what they allow on planes and don't.<br><br>If you’re serous about playing by the school’s rules, you might take a look at the Leatherman Mini. It’s a full-sized pair of needlenose pliers, but the handles fold twice, so the closed length is just two and three-quarters of an inch. Because of the double-folding handles, the file and knife blades are each an inch and a half long, and they do not lock. Unfortunately, that’s about all there is- the end of the file blade serves as a screwdriver, and there are bottle and can openers of sorts cut into the handles, wire cutters in the pliers, and a short ruler. Beats the heck out of nothing at all, though.<br><br>I’m looking forward to seeing the new Leatherman “Micra”-sized tools that have tiny pliers instead of the scissors. However, like some others already on the market, the pliers may be just too small to do much.<br>

For an interesting look at what can happen when you try to get something legal but untraditional on an airplane these days checkout this<br>You will need to register for the free subscription to view it. <br> I am not sure whether his "gear" would qualify as urban survival gear but it seems it was necessary for him to maintain a quality of life he considers survival.

Hey, I've seen that article before...<br><br>U /. 2 ?<br>

Oh yeah! look me up in the user list to contact directly if you want to nerd out.

Checked luggage is the best bet, I'd say :-(<br><br>The Kalifornia law could be worse. I just checked my favorite pocket knife, an oldie I've had forever that is probably the same as an Old Timer Middleman 340T - the main blade is 2 1/2 inches long worst-case (maybe less, depending on how it's measured). I guess it would "pass". Risking howls of outrage, if I could only have one knife, that's the one. If I only have a single sharp on me (rare, very rare), it has always been that one. Even the Deputies at the Courthouse entrance let me keep that one (TECHNICALLY, I could insist on it; practically I surrender it and it's given back to me).<br><br>Man, we live in some really insane times.

PL<br><br>Well don't shoot the messenger. I don't like the situation either. But I don't want to see our friends ending up behind bars due to a careless remark.<br><br>Incidentally I may have ranted on little bit since I just finished 2 weeks on a criminal jury where I had to convict someone with a probably long clean record for 5 minutes of really dumb but well-meaning minor misbehavior.<br><br>John

Sorry, it wasn't intended to be directed at anyone in particular, just ranting against the situation- a paternalistic government that treats it's citizens like helpless children and demands that they act accordingly, or else.

It is interesting, and just a bit ominous, to see how situations have changed recently. Four years ago, our courthouse had a notice on the door that knives over four inches were not allowed. If you went to the third floor where the really heavy duty trials were conducted, you had to pass a metal detector and no sharps were allowed.<br><br>About eighteen months ago, (pre 9/11) the metal detector moved to the building entrance. It's just like getting on a plane, complete with long lines of workers every morning tring to get to work...

That's happened in a LOT of government buildings. It creates a great many problems, and it doesn't offer much real protection. Typically people coming in the front door are treated like potential criminals, but a dozen different kinds of shipments and deliveries are not even checked- sometimes the loading docks are wide open. A typical office building gets a lot of deliveries and uses a LOT of supplies- it's just not practical. All the front-door activity is just to make people think something is being done. It's easier to make people jump through hoops (almost literally) than to really secure the area.<br><br>I suppose, when terrorists start using high-tech plastic or ceramic weapons, or just sharpened dowels, they'll want to start pulling our teeth in reaction. If they ever use unarmed martial arts, we may have to start amputating. <br><br>The principle is just wrong- disarming decent people makes the situation worse, not better. The goal seems to be to make sure that, at whatever level, the terrorists or criminals will still be better armed than their victims. You'd think more would have picked up on that after flight 93, but I guess we're going to have learn a still harder way.<br>