Episode #34<\/a><\/p>\nSince I\u2019m writing this over Thanksgiving Weekend, I figured I\u2019d talk about something that I\u2019m thankful for. Namely, that I live in a state with sane knife laws. We have state preemption, so local municipalities can\u2019t pass their own laws, and the only restrictions that we have are you can\u2019t carry a knife in certain controlled spaces, like airports and court houses, and using a switchblade in the commission of a crime is extra illegal.<\/p>\n
This wasn\u2019t always the case. It wasn\u2019t that long ago that it was illegal to carry a knife with a blade longer than 4 inches, and all automatic knives were illegal. Add to that that we didn\u2019t have a preemption law, and cities could have further restrictions. For example, some cities had ordinances against carrying hawkbills, daggers, and other \u201cscary\u201d blades.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, not everyone is as lucky. Just as gun owners have to deal with gun laws that may or may not make sense, and can be significantly different depending on where you\u2019re standing, so do knife owners.<\/p>\n
One thing that seems to be a common issue is restrictions on blade length. As I said, where I live, it used to be illegal to carry a knife with a blade over 4 inches. In practice, this wasn\u2019t really an issue, as there are a ton of knives out there that under this limit, and, frankly, anything larger than that is not particularly convenient to have in your pocket. Of course, being told that I couldn\u2019t carry anything larger always kind of bugged me.<\/p>\n
Even then, I was still lucky. There\u2019s a lot of states where the blade limit is 3 inches, and there\u2019s some places, like Chicago, where it\u2019s illegal to carry anything over 2 inches in length! The theory behind these blade restrictions is that knives over these length are somehow evil, and will predominately be used for crime. Of course, this requires you to ignore the knives that most folks have in their kitchen that reach 8, 9, or 10 inches. To add to the confusion, there are a few states that state that it\u2019s illegal to carry a blade of a certain size \u201cwith the intent to go armed.\u201d Which\u2026 in practice, tends to mean \u201cif the cops like you or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also a few states that have restrictions on the type of knife you can carry. A number of states ban the carrying of fixed blade knives, unless you\u2019re involved in an activity like camping. Others ban things like knives with both edges sharpened, because they\u2019re classified as daggers.<\/p>\n
Of course, there\u2019s a lot of places that still ban switchblades and other automatic knives. These laws were in response to hysteria during the 50\u2019s. The media and press pushed the idea that switchblades were evil weapons that were especially deadly and the choice of gangs and other criminals all over the country. Gun owners probably find that statement extremely familiar. I\u2019m sure you won\u2019t be shocked to find that reality had nothing to do with the narrative.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s some other laws that knife owners have to deal with that are about as clear as mud. An example is a law in Kentucky that only allows its citizens to conceal carry \u201cordinary pocket knives or hunting knives.\u201d Now\u2026 what constitutes an \u201cordinary pocket knife\u201d is anyone\u2019s guess.<\/p>\n
Oh, and if you spotted that I used the term \u201cconceal carry,\u201d good job. Yes, there are some jurisdictions that actually care how<\/b> you carry a knife<\/b>. Some get angsty if you\u2019re carrying it concealed, some care if you carry it openly. Some get so angsty about open carry that there are folks that actually make lanyards that have pocket clips that look like the tops of pens so that you can attach it to your knife and be able to easily access your knife without using the pocket clip that\u2019s on the knife, because having the knife\u2019s pocket clip showing might count as open carry, and therefor possible jail time.<\/p>\n
Of course, there\u2019s some states where some of the laws don\u2019t apply to folks with carry licenses.<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s places like New York City. Fuck New York City. Seriously. The state is bad enough. The state bans knives with knuckle guards, knives that are disguised as other things (including sword canes), switchblades, knives that they decide are primarily used as weapons, and gravity knives. Oh, and, if you\u2019re not a citizen of the US? Yeah\u2026 you\u2019re not allowed to carry *anything*. New York City has to take it further. NYC says that you have to completely conceal any knife you carry. That means no pocket clips. On top of that, the NYPD has decided that a \u201cgravity\u201d knife means any lock blade knife that the officer<\/b> can open through the use of inertia. This includes grabbing the knife by the blade and flinging it around. By this definition, almost all lock blades are gravity knives. It\u2019s to the point that, when I visited the Beretta store in NYC a few years back, I asked the nice sales person what knives in their case were legal to carry in the city. She couldn\u2019t give me a clear answer.<\/p>\n
The good news is that there is a group fighting all this BS. The folks over at KnifeRights.org are a great group of folks that have been doing good work. They\u2019re the reason my state has the laws that we currently enjoy, and they\u2019ve been fighting in other parts of the country. They\u2019ve even been fighting the good fight in New York, both in the legislature and the courts. If you have some money left over after donating to your chosen pro-gun groups, I highly recommend sending some money their way.<\/p>\n
I also need to put the usual \u201cI am not a lawyer\u201d stamp on this. As you can see, knife laws are all over the place, so please do your own research. I highly recommend KnifeUp\u2019s page on knife laws as a starting point, and will include a link in the show notes. Oh, don\u2019t be terribly surprised if a cop tells you that the law is something that isn\u2019t true. I\u2019ve heard countless stories of \u201ca police officer told me…\u201d and the law just didn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n
Well, after talking about this stupidity, I think I\u2019m going to go back to enjoying good company and maybe a few drinks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Quick note: I realized that it might be helpful for folks for me to post modified transcripts of my segments on Assorted Calibers Podcast.\u00a0 Especially, since some of them are serious info dumps.\u00a0 The fact that this means that I get to reuse stuff in multiple places is completely unrelated… I swear.\u00a0 This is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-knives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}