i just called my local PD station and spoke with a corporal police office. he said the knife, kubotan, and metal pipe is illegal to keep in my car. anything that can cause bodily harm is illegal he states.
box cutter is fine to keep but it has to be for work purposes only, but if its for personal protection then it is illegal.
he recommended to look up 'emergency seatbelt cutter and window hammer' on amazon. i mean i don't want to get in trouble w/the law, but not having any sort of personal protection doesn't jive with me, but the laws the law i suppose.
What a load of crap.
Either the cop flat out lied to you, because cops tend to react negatively to members of the public being armed or having "weapons" in their car, or he was simply ignorant of the law. Both are not uncommon.
To say it's illegal to have "anything that can cause bodily harm" in your vehicle is ludicrous. What about a hammer, or a screwdriver, or a tire iron, or a jack handle, or a big metal flashlight, baseball bat, golf club, etc, etc, etc.
As long as the knife in question isn't a switchblade or butterfly knife with a blade 2" or longer, then it is perfectly legal to keep anywhere in the driver/passenger area of a vehicle, visible or concealed.
As for a piece of pipe, there is nothing inherently illegal about having a piece of pipe in your vehicle. It is illegal however to intentionally carry an item for use as a club against people, including carrying it in your car. Telling a cop you have it for use as a weapon is a criminal admission that could get you arrested. But they wouldn't know you were carrying it as a weapon unless you told them. Case law on this is People v. Grubb.
Furthermore, there is nothing in the California penal code that says it's illegal to carry a knife for self-defense, or even for use as a weapon (hard to believe, but true).
It is widely known that the police are a terrible source of information when it comes to the law regarding knives, weapons, and the general public, for the very reasons I mentioned at the beginning of this post. You are free to believe the cop if you want, but I think it would be a shame to give up your lawful rights based on bad info from a cop who may very well have been lying to you.
Here is a link to the OFFICIAL California government legislative website where all of California's knife and weapon laws can be found-
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml
To use the search function click "Text Search", left side, middle of the screen. Then click the box next to "Penal Code" bottom of middle column, then type whatever words you want to search for into the search boxes and click "Search" at the bottom of the page.
And here is the list of prohibited weapons in the state of California (from that same site)-
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=16590.&lawCode=PEN
I'm 51 years old, and I've lived in California all my life. I'm not a lawyer, but I've had several in my employment, and I have received what I consider to be a good education on the laws of this state regarding it's knife and weapon laws (firearms not included).
On a personal note, I would never choose a piece of pipe for self-defense. When it comes to blunt force weapons it's always good to have a reasonable, logical, and legitimate reason to carry what you're carrying. I carry a 14" crescent wrench when I ride my motorcycle, but it's the appropriate size wrench for my rear axle nut. And gosh darn it, all the vibration my bike experiences when I ride can sometimes cause that nut to loosen. So before every ride I use the wrench to check it.
EDIT- I edited this post to remove incorrect information regarding kubotans. Under California law they would be considered "metal knuckles" which are illegal to posses. Thank you to JohnnyLightOn for correcting my error in post #21.
