One of the issues I have encountered is about wearing the highland dagger in my sock in a public environment ( eg on the train or London underground. )In the UK any blade over 3 inches (the Sgian Dubh is typically 3 1/2 inches) is potentially drawing the attention of the police whose concern is rising knife crime . It is true that the law says you can wear it if you have a good reason eg if you wearing full highland dress for example as you might do to go into wedding etc but it is very much up to the judgement of individual police officers who can be somewhat officious and I like to wear a kilt in less formal circumstances such as going to the theatre .

In order to avoid a needless confrontation I will not wear one of mine( I have three) publicly instead I wear an imitation solid plastic one. Sometimes I will carry a real one one tucked into my sporran and put it on when I get to the venue. I was able to do this at a formal lunch at the Royal Air Force Club in Piccadilly in February ( The Black Watch is the official Royal Air Force Tartan) where there were no issues and Sikhs are permitted to wear their ceremonial dagger under their turbans I believe.

Bu even then when entering venues or events it rather depends on the attitude of the security people at the door. Last year I was on a cruise and I was obliged to have mine kept in a safe at reception to pick up to wear at black tie events. I was not required to leave a hostage but you never know. One at least of reception staff seemed to think this was very funny.

Never mind that the steak knives in the restaurants were far longer and more deadly and never mind but they had a genuine Gurkha kukri parked outside the Indian restaurant on the ship which anyone could grab and chop off somebody’s head with quite readily(Somewhat unlikely given the average age of the people on the cruise which greatly exceeded my own at 75!. )Cutting bread is a challenge with the highland dagger and pair of nail scissors is far more deadly potentially

I suspect in the USA this issue arises seldom - if at all -l but I would be interested to hear from UK based members how they have accommodated wearing a sgian dubh to the law. I have a feeling in Scotland matters are conducted different.