I think the discussion of fear in society and overreactions by the police is interesting. I have owned one of these umbrellas for about a year and regularly ca

I think the discussion of fear in society and overreactions by the police is interesting. I have owned one of these umbrellas for about a year and regularly carry it onto the DC metro. I have been stopped by metro police once. They calmly asked to see it, were generally curious about where I got it, quickly returned it and went about their day. I think it's a disgusting over-reaction to deploy more than one officer to investigate a report of someone carrying something that might be a sword. If they're running around clearly attacking people with a confirmed weapon, sure.. send in the necessary resources. If they might just be carrying an umbrella, send at most one person who can handle it even if it does turn out to be a weapon. And that's assuming weapons are banned in that area because it's a school or something. In other areas of the same country I think people have a constitutional right to own weapons in which case this wouldn't even need to be investigated. I also had one person tell me they thought they saw me carrying a gun. People aren't just afraid of sword shaped items, they're afraid of any long black narrow item. Just like Boston is afraid of anything with batteries, wires and LEDs.