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Depends where you live and stuff, but in some areas possession of lock picking tools while committing a crime is an extra offense. You might be found to be committing a crime for a number of various reasons (legit or not), and have this charge tacked on for good luck.

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A bump key is easily hidden among other keys on a keyring; it's just a key cut to the lowest depths in all positions, otherwise it looks just like any other key. It's a lot less obvious than a set of lock picks.

Bump keys, as others have posted, are very crude and rough on the internals of a lock so I'd say use them sparingly, and never without the lock owner's explicit permission of course. But they do have a place. (And require practice too!)

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