The swinging bladed tool people might use for gardening is a machete, which (absurdly) is banned under separate legislation along with "zombie knives", whatever

The swinging bladed tool people might use for gardening is a machete, which (absurdly) is banned under separate legislation along with "zombie knives", whatever the hell that is (some sort of serration?) You have to understand that as a headline factory. The Offensive Weapons Act already prohibits carrying anything with the intent of using it as a weapon. Police routinely confiscate kitchen knives from the pockets of young men in stop-and-search. The specific bans on specific weapons are part of a stupid media cycle where a crime is carried out using a fancy weapon so the government legislates against that specific weapon. It's like trying to outlaw cryptocurrencies by banning them by name one at a time. It's incredibly stupid but a tradition of UK politics because it's easier than trying to untangle the actual problems of knife crime. It's also a UK thing, not an EU thing. There isn't an EU level knife directive, rules vary; Czechia and Finland seem to be loosest from some brief googling.