In how many states are switchblades legal?

TOM1960 said:
NH recently changed their knife laws, so switchblades, balis, etc. are legal to possess and carry. Switchblades can be legally possessed in one's home here in MA. Possession or carrying in public, whether concealed or openly, is a felony. How one gets the switchblade from the dealership to one's home without committing a felony is anybody's guess!
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Yes , similar to NY's hunting and fishing exemption.
 
glistam said:
I don't think it would be very responsible to oversimplify because it could potentially give someone an inaccurate idea, especially in places like MA or TX where restrictive local city knife ordinances are very common.
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While I usually agree with what you say, glistam, I have to take exception to being included in the same sentence, much less anywhere else, with Taxachusetts.

Restrictive city ordinances are NOT VERY common in Texas. To my knowledge, there are only 4 - San Antonio with a ban on locking blade knives, Corpus Christi - fixed blade ban and length limit on folders, Dallas - length limit and a 4th one so small and out of the way no one remembers where or who it is. That's 4 in a state as large as the entire country of France. Hell, we have counties down nearly that big. (slight exaggeration MA - 10,555 Sq Miles, it takes 2 counties to exceed that area Brewster + Hudspeth = 10754.7).

AND we tried for pre-emption this year. Hopefully, 2015 will be the year. (legislature only meets for 5 months every 2 years - any more than that and the politicians would REALLY get things fouled up.)
 
As of July 1, automatic knives became legal in KS. Anything up to a 4" blade is considered a pocket knife under the previous statute. I have the statute marked, but it is several pages long and I have not studied it further.
 
zzyzzogeton said:
While I usually agree with what you say, glistam, I have to take exception to being included in the same sentence, much less anywhere else, with Taxachusetts.

Restrictive city ordinances are NOT VERY common in Texas. To my knowledge, there are only 4 - San Antonio with a ban on locking blade knives, Corpus Christi - fixed blade ban and length limit on folders, Dallas - length limit and a 4th one so small and out of the way no one remembers where or who it is. That's 4 in a state as large as the entire country of France. Hell, we have counties down nearly that big. (slight exaggeration MA - 10,555 Sq Miles, it takes 2 counties to exceed that area Brewster + Hudspeth = 10754.7).

AND we tried for pre-emption this year. Hopefully, 2015 will be the year. (legislature only meets for 5 months every 2 years - any more than that and the politicians would REALLY get things fouled up.)
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My bad. 4 just seemed like a lot when a number of (admittedly smaller) states have 0 without preemption. San Antonio gives TX a bad reputation by having a law disturbingly close to NYC or the UK.
 
glistam said:
My bad. 4 just seemed like a lot when a number of (admittedly smaller) states have 0 without preemption. San Antonio gives TX a bad reputation by having a law disturbingly close to NYC or the UK.
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Oh, I totally agree that SA is an embarrassment on that point.

FWIW, when I learned about the ordinances, I sent a letter to the city managers of SA, CC and Dallas telling them that as I had recently learned that I had been illegal and therefore subject to arrest/criminal record every time I've visited their cities for the last few years without knowing it, that until they changed their ordinances to conform to state law, I would no longer visit their cities. That I refused to surrender the rights afforded to me by the Constitution of the State of Texas. If they didn't want my knives, then they didn't want my money. And that I would advise everyone I know not to visit either.

6 months later and no responses received from any of them, not that I expected to really get one.

Yes, I know that makes me sound like the sound end of a north-bound mule, but money talks and people listen. If everyone in Texas who carries a knife made illegal by these ordinances did the same and refused to spend money in their cities, maybe it might cause a change. I doubt it. Never expect a politician to do the right thing, just to do what will get them re-elected.

Maybe we need a "Knife-in" at the Alamo.:D Could they really arrest a few thousand Texans at one time?:D:D
 
zzyzzogeton said:
While I usually agree with what you say, glistam, I have to take exception to being included in the same sentence, much less anywhere else, with Taxachusetts.

Restrictive city ordinances are NOT VERY common in Texas. To my knowledge, there are only 4 - San Antonio with a ban on locking blade knives, Corpus Christi - fixed blade ban and length limit on folders, Dallas - length limit and a 4th one so small and out of the way no one remembers where or who it is. That's 4 in a state as large as the entire country of France. Hell, we have counties down nearly that big. (slight exaggeration MA - 10,555 Sq Miles, it takes 2 counties to exceed that area Brewster + Hudspeth = 10754.7).

AND we tried for pre-emption this year. Hopefully, 2015 will be the year. (legislature only meets for 5 months every 2 years - any more than that and the politicians would REALLY get things fouled up.)
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so the way I read your post my Kershaw leek would be illegal in San Antonio because it has a liner lock?? the buck 110 would also not be allowed because of the lock it has??
 
richard thurman said:
so the way I read your post my Kershaw leek would be illegal in San Antonio because it has a liner lock?? the buck 110 would also not be allowed because of the lock it has??
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Yes, Richard, that is correct. The state law max blade length limit for legal carry in public is 5.5". Texas has 2 levels of knife definitions - legal and illegal.

Legal means "legal to carry in public".

A Legal knife - max 5.5 inches as measured from hilt front to the tip of the knife, straight line (NOT along the edge), single edge. Effective 01 September 2013, any switchblade or balisong knife that meets the definition is legal 5.5 inch, single edge.

Illegal knife - basically anything that does not meet the definition of "legal knife". Also, specifically named in state law as being illegal are daggers, dirks, poniards, and bowie knives. Or as I like to put it, "daggers, short daggers, daggers and bowie knives", since a dirk is a "short dagger" and poniard is simply French for "dagger".

Nowhere are any of these terms defined. The double edge prohibition comes from the illegality of daggers. Sometimes as little as 1/4 inch of sharpening on the swedge is enough for some (not anywhere close to most) LEOs to call a particular knife a dagger.

Bowie knife? Who knows what could be called a Bowie knife. Rezin Bowie (Jim Bowie's brother) described the original Bowie knife as being a straight blade, 9.5 inches long, 1.5 inches wide, and guard less, similar to a large butcher knife. I've heard of otherwise legal knives being called Bowies simply because they had guards or a clip blade or both.

On private property (your home, farm, ranch, hunting lease, while fishing, etc) you strap on anything your heart desires and your back could handle.

What San Antonio has done is pass an ordinance that says it is a criminal offense (misdemeanor) to carry within the city limits any locking blade knife with a blade length LESS THAN 5.5 inches. Since there is no such thing as a blade EXACTLY 5.5 inches, all locking blade knives are banned. Not fixed blades, just locking folders. "They" (the city council and the police chief at the time) SAID they only want it because of gang activity (based on web archived news articles from then). Corpus Christi enacted their 3" limit on all folders and ban on all fixed blades for the same PC reasons.

I may be interpreting the ordinances incorrectly (I am NOT an attorney and never desired to be one of the bottom-feeding mud cats) the way the CC ordinance is written, you COULD be arrested for having a steak/paring knife in a park to cut up a hot dog, sausage, apple, butter your bread, whatever.

Pre-emption 2015!!!!
 
I am from El Paso Texas. I never heard of these laws before but I lived there when I was just a kid. I am glad I don't live there now. It sounds like if you love knifes they way people on this board does you better keep them at your home or have lot's of money for bail.
 
richard thurman said:
I am from El Paso Texas. I never heard of these laws before but I lived there when I was just a kid. I am glad I don't live there now. It sounds like if you love knifes they way people on this board does you better keep them at your home or have lot's of money for bail.
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Most places are pretty laid back about knives. I EDC 2 Bucks (484 and 482) and rotate small Kabars (3" - 5") fixed blade every day, at a minimum. If I have my EMS duty belt on, that adds 2 more cutting tools - shears and a strap cutter. I just don't go to San Antonio or Corpus any more.

My new reply if someone asks "Why do you need to have a weapon like that?" (referring to my 3 - 5" fixed blade of the day), I just say "This is a tool, not a weapon. You must be from California or yankeeland if you think this is a weapon."
 
hell I got out of the US ARMY in 1985. 2 months latter a person stabbed me 6 times. 4 times in the back and 2 times in the front. I never had anything to do with knifes until that time. once I learn on how to walk again I got into knifes big time. the knife didn't stabbed me the person did.
 
zzyzzogeton said:
My new reply if someone asks "Why do you need to have a weapon like that?" (referring to my 3 - 5" fixed blade of the day), I just say "This is a tool, not a weapon. You must be from California or yankeeland if you think this is a weapon ."
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Or Chicago or any other place where liberals breed and multiply like the vermin they are. (Please don't paint everyone who lives north of the Mason-Dixon with the same broad brush.)
 
jerryd6818 said:
Or Chicago or any other place where liberals breed and multiply like the vermin they are. (Please don't paint everyone who lives north of the Mason-Dixon with the same broad brush.)
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Oh I know there are a few good people north of Waco. I think they work in Olean, NY and Ontario, NY. :D:D

6 1/2 months in Newport, RI for Navy Department Head School and the holier than thou treatment I received from idiots in RI, Mass and eastern Conn just because I was from Texas, along with a few south-ends of north-bound mules also known as yankeeland "senior officers" (I refuse to call them 'superior officers' because they weren't) who considered me lower than whale dung because I was 1st generation Navy from the farming/ranching area of Texas just caused me to embrace my heritage even more strongly and I tend to tweak the nose of any yankee, just to irritate them. I guarantee that my Texas accent gets stronger and my use of Texas related terms/aphorisms increases just to p--- them off.

Most of the knife laws we have in Texas (and all over the south) are due to a result of carpetbaggers coming down after the Civil War and making/influencing laws to disarm as many southerners as possible. Also, by restricting knives, they also were effective at disarming recently freed slaves. Most former slaves were too poor to buy guns, so they were more likely to have knives, clubs or hatchets/tomahawks for defense. Having the laws on the books gave police a reason to arrest "the riff-raff" on weapons possession charges. At least, that is the explanation about many of the strange laws we have down here as given to me by a history professor back in college in the 70s.

Some of our laws may have made sense to someone when they passed them. Supposedly, some of the counties in west Texas still have laws that make it illegal to carry wire cutters in "the wagon box or saddle bags" unless actively engaged in the installation or repair of fences stemming back to the range wars that ignited over barbed wire fences. Some courts interpreted vehicle trunks, glove boxes and behind the seat of a pickup as being the modern equivalent of a wagon box (the box like structure under the seat of the wagon or under the wagon bed where tools for wagon maintenance and repair were carried) in order to used the old laws against "modern" suspects for charge piling.
 
Glistam, not sure about your response in post #22 about the NY law....It allows for possession of these knives for use while fishing, hunting, trapping....Seems pretty clear. You can have them while going to and from and during use and in your house for use when not doing those sports just as your fishing pole is in your house when not in use. NY pretty clearly defines possession as having control over an item anywhere.
 
tom19176 said:
Glistam, not sure about your response in post #22 about the NY law....It allows for possession of these knives for use while fishing, hunting, trapping....Seems pretty clear. You can have them while going to and from and during use and in your house for use when not doing those sports just as your fishing pole is in your house when not in use. NY pretty clearly defines possession as having control over an item anywhere.
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I got hung up on the phrase "possession," and did not realize the actual carry statute also uses "possession" rather than "carry." So I see your point.
 
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