Pennsylvania law is one of the weirder ones in the US, because it never actually had a carry law, just a "possession" law; it's just that possession laws are almost only ever enforced when an item is carried.
That law is
18 Pa.C.S.A. § 908. The recent amendment removed language from it that was intended to refer to switchblades, and this statute now no longer contains any words referring to knives.
However, the amendment did
not remove the phrasing:
...or other implement for the infliction of serious bodily injury which serves no common lawful purpose.
The applicability of this particular part of the law is unclear in light of the new law change. The
AKTI claims in it's post that the removal of the switchblade language makes the statute itself no longer applicable to
any knives, due to supposed legislative intent. I find this claim difficult to support in light of prior case law.
Commonwealth v. Artis in 1980 ruled that a 7" bladed folding fillet knife was not an offensive weapon, even though the defendant waved it around threatening people in a bar. This was because a fillet knife is primarily designed for a sporting use. This ruling established that usage and intent are irrelevant, and rather it's what the knife is designed for.
Commonwealth v. Lawson in 2009 ruled that a fixed blade which can be folded down into a punch-dagger orientation serves no common lawful purpose, and found Lawson guilty. The case summary specifically bolded the phrase of the statute above, and that phrase remains after the law was amended.
Because this language remains in the law, legality of certain knives in PA may still be questionable. The two cases above established that intent doesn't matter, and rather it seems to be the if you can reasonably prove the knife was designed for some purpose other than a weapon, then it is legal to possess (and thus, carry). For my own part, I'm of the ethnographically-supported opinion that balisongs were not designed to be weapons; they're just another form of folding knife (Maryland law agrees with me). However, daggers might be harder to support a claim of being designed for a common lawful purpose (
Lawson ruled self-defense doesn't count).
