9 Seemingly Innocent Items That Are, In Fact, Illegal

We generally like to ignore the fact that a traditional drum is made of tight, tanned, animal skin. Customs doesn’t have that privilege, especially after a Haitian goat hide drum contained cutaneous anthrax in the animal skin.

Collecting seashells on the shore of one of our National Parks seems like the exact opposite of a crime. Unfortunately, visitors aren't allowed to remove anything from a National Park without permission, making that beautiful bathroom decor illegal.

Mostly known as a pattern rather than a material these days, and for a good reason: that material is now illegal to sell. If anything from a pair of glasses to a comb to a guitar pick is found to be made from real, endangered sea turtle or tortoise shell, it's suddenly a very illegal trip to the vintage shop.

If you’ve ever wondered why you’ve never seen haggis in the U.S., it’s not just because of poor sales. Haggis’ ingredients include sheep lungs, which are summarily banned from import to the U.S. to avoid disease.

For the same reason as haggis, but in a food you’re at least slightly more likely to voluntarily consume. Black pudding also contains sheep lung.

A favorite of foreign children, the classic “Kinder Surprise,” a chocolate egg with a toy inside, is banned in the United States — for children’s safety, because U.S. parents are too dumb to read labels, and U.S. kids are too dumb not to eat plastic.

Admittedly, not perfectly “innocent,” but still, today’s street toughs aren’t often breaking out the knuckle dusters. Maybe because, despite their simplicity, they’re plenty brutal, and banned in much of the U.S.

Between brass knuckles and switchblades, it’s bad news for evil rockabillies. Switchblades, which cover most knives with a blade that can be deployed automatically, are illegal.

Okay, so this one’s pretty unlikely to be sitting around unless your last name is de Vil. The only exception is taxidermy for a deceased pet, which still feels very much like a violation.