I carry this knife everyday, monday we are leaving on a roadtrip/camping trip to Norway. Is it allowed to carry this knife? Rules online are very unclear.
I carry this knife everyday, monday we are leaving on a roadtrip/camping trip to Norway. Is it allowed to carry this knife? Rules online are very unclear.
7 comments
You are not allowed to carry a knife in public unless it is for a specific (and legal) purpose such as work or outdoor use.
If the police catch you in the middle of Oslo in jeans and a tee and you try to convince them that it’s for outdoor use they’ll likely not believe you – and it would be illegal.
If they see you carrying it in full hiking gear on your way to a forest they likely would believe you – and it would be legal.
You’re not allowed to carry a knife without a good reason. Being on a camping trip would usually count as a good reason, as would driving to where you’d camp.
To avoid any problems you should keep the knife packed up in your rucksack when in towns etc. As there you wouldn’t have a good reason to carry knife.
You can carry as long as you have a “just cause”. Camping is definately a just cause, but not generally walking around in the city.
Some type of knives are not legal no matter if you have a cause, such as switchblades/automatic knives and a few others. Spring-assisted knives are ok.
You can carry a knife if you have what is called “Aktverdigformål”, which means that you can carry a knife if you have a good and legal reason to do so, like work, fishing trips, hunting, outdoor activities, and so on.
Just keep it in a backpack and you will have zero problems
Exceedingly unlikely to cause any trouble. You can carry a knife if it’s for a reasonable purpose such as to use as a tool for camping or other outdoorsy activities. I don’t think you should bring the knife for (say) a night on the town or similar things — there you’d have no reasonable purpose of it, and it would get judged as a weapon and you’d risk both confiscation and a fine.
But it’s also not as if you regularly get searched by the police without probably cause. I’ve lived in Norway about 90% of my life, and I can nevertheless count on ZERO fingers the times I’ve been searched by the police. So practically speaking the odds of getting in any kind of trouble with the police should be low as long as you behave.
The prohibition exists mostly for the police to be able to fight gang-violence with knives; if you’re a known gang-member and you get arrested for some other minor crime, say shoplifting or disturbing the public peace, they absolutely WILL ding you for possession of a knife without a reasonable purpose on top of the other charges.