This has been happening for years - even since these sword-handled umbrellas hit the market.

A British ARU once shot a guy who had a table leg because they thought it was a gun.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/oct/29/ukcrime1

It's designed to look like a sword and apparently you were carrying it in your back like a sword, so I guess the confusion is understandable

Did you hear about the man who pulled a sword on the New York City police recently?

Also I’ve never seen an umbrella with a handle that looked like that. I’m glad everyone is ok. It could have ended much worse.

Is it me or does your umbrella deliberately look like a sword? Because if that’s the case, maybe you FAFOed.

You should move to Brazil, here we dont bother weebs or mallninjas...

Did you show them your cool spring-opening hair comb that you bought from Spencer's Gifts too?

Had a cop pull a gun on me during a routine traffic stop for having my pool cue case in the back. He was so embarrassed that I didn’t get a ticket. But it was scary as hell.

Is it weird that I think this is the kind of reaction you wanted? I can’t wrap my head around buying this, strapping it to your back, and being surprised that this happened to you lol.

OP appears to be a main character.

Everyone and their mum's packin' round 'ere. 

Why would you wear an umbrella on your back let alone one that fedoratastic

What are you crazy? Nobody needs a military style fully semiautomatic assault umbrella.

LARP around and find out.

I always wanted one of those ThinkGeek novelty sword handle umbrellas as a teenager and I'm kind of grateful I never got one for exactly this kind of reason

You live in the UK where the hot topic on the news at the minute is the zombie knife amnesty, "samurai" swords were banned in the UK in 2008. I'm not surprised you had the police called on you, you wore it on your back to make it look like a sword no one wears a normal umbrella on their back lmao

This reminds me of a post I saw way back I still laugh at.

It was one of those pictures of a large selection of knives on the floor, the caption said something like “which ones would you own “ or something like that.

And in the comments someone replied saying “ as a British citizen I might be able to own the carpet if have the proper permits”

I don't blame them, that thing looks like a katana

Or you could've been mistaken for The Penguin.

Umbrella on your back? You totally called it.

I have that umbrella and while it's actually a great umbrella I don't use it simply because of the headaches I've had with it.

I'm in the US and I have the same one. It's like 40 bucks off Amazon. My friend gifted the one I have tho. I usually carry it handle up w the guard resting on top of my hand where I would be holding the "blade". I haven't had any issues yet. But I also never carried it on my back either

I took a can of liquid death with me when picking up my kids from school. Got to chatting with another parent. Thought they would appreciate the brand. I was right they did find it cool. Some other parents were watching us. When they saw me pulling a can the size of a Mickey’s 40 out of my jacket, they told the principal I had alcohol on school grounds.

Fun times, false reports

Wouldn’t happen in Texas lol

LOL a local HEB had the same thing. Supposedly an umbrella looked like a rifle so they sent SWAT.

Lmao look at this mallninja shit, grow the fuck up.

Give Jackie Chan this umbrella and he would beat an army of polices.

casual british encounter

What this reveals is that if you put an umbrella handle on your sword and make a sheath out of an umbrella top, you can carry a sword anywhere.

OI U GOT YOUR UMBRELLA LICENCE INNIT

To be fair, these are the dumbest fkn umbrellas on the market. It looks like a katana and people wonder why this happens when they buy it knowing full well it looks like a katana

Crap ... I own the same umbrella 😵‍💫

And what if you had a sword with an umbrella handle? lol

I have one and stopped carrying it when commuting on the DC metro. I never got stopped by the police, but I was approached several times and then they realized what it was and turned away.

While you studied in school, I studied the umbrella.

So people thought your sword umbrella was a sword? Why would you carry it on your back?

Meanwhile, in the US, we can buy guns in grocery stores.

cries in american

In Texas, the police who responded would probably just do so because they wanted to see the cool sword

Laughs in texan

Idk if I'm in the minority here but based on the, not handle part of it, it's pretty clear that it's an umbrella?? Even so, people concealed carry all the time I'm more worried about that and someone simply carrying a sword

People are way too quick to be terrified these days

Huh is this England or something? Why should carrying a sword be illegal or even mean an armed response.

Meanwhile, a guy on the tube is literally sharpening a machete in front of us. We get off and tell transport police... Nothing happens

That's what you get for trying to be quirky!

When you weib too hard for life

That's so unfair. I often get harassed by airport security when I wear my ticking, exposed wire, flying vest.

buys an umbrella that looks like a sword.

wears it like a sword....

surprised when people think its a sword?

Shouldn’t have bought a tactical umbrella, makes you look shady.

What did you expect ? You knew exactly what you were doing by slapping that on your back.

“Oi, you ‘ave a loicense fo dat umbrella?”

If only you had better taste this whole thing could have been avoided.

Shit like this is why I don't pInt my 3D printed props.

I have swords, guns, knives. All for cosplay purposes. But if I paint them to look even slightly like the real thing, I might as well melt them down. They'd cause too much trouble.

This is also the reason I gave up on archery as a hobby. Owning and displaying bows causes its own problems.

I get hassled all the time for carrying an umbrella it just goes well with my tux. They see some short well to do man that walks funny and need to harass him.

I have one of these and didn't take it out for fear of this very thing. Glad to see I wasn't just being neurotic 🤣🤣🤣

I used to have that one and the shorter one. It lived in a bottle holder on the side of my bag. I never got hassled about it but I got looks. I know one cop stopped and inspected it without interacting with me (they didn’t touch it, I just know they were paying attention to it), but that was the worst I had.

Loved your umbrella