The next major battle in the right to keep and bear arms may have nothing at all to do with firearms, but with knives, and this fight will cut straight to the bone, both culturally and financially here in the Pacific Northwest.
That is the prospect emerging from a controversy now exploding in New York City, where Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. has declared war on pocket knives. We are not talking about switchblades or butterfly knives, gravity knives, daggers or stilettos, but the kind of one-hand-opening pocket knives that have become popular with the majority of shooters, hunters, and other outdoorsmen and women. According to Doug Ritter, executive director of KnifeRights.org, about 80 percent of knife sales today involve this kind of knife.
We are speaking about knives from Buck, Kershaw, Columbia River Knife & Tool, Benchmade, Spyderco, Cold Steel, Gerber and enough other brands to make this an assault on industry as well as private citizens. More details on this controversy will appear in an upcoming issue of Gun Week, under my byline.
Vance’s claim is a blatant distortion of the intent of the statute and a total misunderstanding of the knife design mechanisms involved.--AmmoLand
Washington state gunnies will immediately recognize these brand names. Several of these companies are based in neighboring Oregon, and Buck is headquartered in Post Falls, Idaho, about 25 minutes from Spokane. Spyderco’s home is in Colorado. These companies employ hundreds of people, and the products they manufacture provide jobs to thousands more all over the country. The knives they make are used by sportsmen and women, police officers and firefighters, construction workers and warehousemen, foresters, farmers, ranchers and business executives.
Take a look around in gun shops like Wade’s in Bellevue, Butch’s in Seattle, Kesselring’s up in Burlington; you will find the kinds of knives now under attack in New York on prominent display. Visit the monthly Washington Arms Collectors gun shows in Puyallup or Monroe and you will find literally thousands of these knives for sale. Here in the West, they are as common as, well, guns. Take a close look at anybody who carries a firearm and, in addition to spare ammunition, you will almost invariably find them packing a knife, sometimes two.
Knife Rights and the American Knife and Tool Institute (AKTI) have sounded the alarm, and AmmoLand.com has commented on the situation. Knife Rights’ Ritter told this column that the first warning signs came during the annual knife and cutlery show in Atlanta, GA earlier this year.
“The fear,” Ritter explained, “is that other district attorneys in other liberal cities will see this as a successful assault on pocket knives. It’s easy money. And (from there) we head down the road toward…stigmatizing knives.”
The agreements require the companies to turn over all profits from the sale of such knives during the past 4-year period, totaling nearly $1.9 million to date, and to finance a campaign to educate the public about illegal knives.”—Manhattan District Attorney’s Office press release
What Vance has done, according to critics of his anti-knife campaign, is use – and perhaps distort – the knife law to essentially coerce knife retailers in the Big Apple to pay out fairly healthy sums of cash to the city and state in exchange for not being prosecuted. According to Vance’s own press release, and coverage in the New York Times, approximately $1.9 million is being paid to the city and state which will be split up also with the District Attorney’s “law enforcement partners.” More than 1,300 knives have already been surrendered to the District Attorney’s office.
Some people just might compare that to extortion, except in this case, it would be difficult to prove because Vance is essentially enforcing the law, though the knife community is offering a rather spirited argument that his office is stretching the definitions of what constitutes a switchblade or gravity knife to include a whole lot of knife models.
What the DA is not telling the public is that his office’s interpretation of a gravity knife is ANY folding knife that can be opened with one hand – no matter how difficult.--AmmoLand
Vance, who took office on Jan. 1, has wasted no time in finding an issue that catapults his name into headlines. Some of his rhetoric is not-coincidentally familiar to gun rights activists who have been fighting obnoxious gun laws for many years.
Said Vance to the New York Times in a June 17 story: “What makes these knives so dangerous is the ease with which they can be concealed and brandished.”
Is that not the same logic applied to dozens of handgun models designed for concealed carry and personal protection?
Perhaps C.J. Buck with Buck Knife put it best: “They are now changing their interpretation of gravity knives and casting a really wide net that’s all of a sudden taking a whole bunch of law abiding citizens and making them criminals.”
“This is a very serious problem, and not only for New York City,” AKTI Executive Director Jan Billeb warned.
If Vance is successful in the city, he may push for the strategy to be adopted statewide. From there, the campaign against knives could spread like a cancer. The New York Criminal Lawyer blog has made it clear this is just the first phase of Vance's effort.
This program and investigation…is not over despite its apparent success to date. In fact, the District Attorney's Office website is clear: ‘The District Attorney’s Office has begun Phase II of the investigation, targeting out-of-state vendors selling to New York residents – which is a serious crime. Those companies are opening themselves to prosecution to the fullest extent of the law."—New York Criminal Lawyer Blog
The only thing missing from this is the emergence of a “Brady Campaign to Prevent Knife Violence.”
Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Bellevue-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, puts this issue in perspective.
“The Second Amendment covers the right to keep and bear arms,” he explained. “Arms can be defined as inclusive of things other than firearms.”
What makes these knives so dangerous is the ease with which they can be concealed and brandished,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr
True enough. In the early days of this country, it was common to see men armed not only with one or a brace of pistols, but also knives and, especially on the frontier, hatchets. Defensive daggers were even stylish in some areas. The Bowie knife and Arkansas Toothpick were utilitarian tools with a clearly defensive aspect.
Today’s battle is shaping up over folding knives that can be opened with one hand. That covers just about any folder on the market. How many people remember how grandpa used to be able to open up his pocket knife with one hand by firmly gripping the blade between thumb and index finger, and flipping down sharply so that the handle would rotate open via centrifugal force, thus opening the knife?
The DA’s office claims homicides and knife use in non-fatal stabbings to be a serious problem in Manhattan. Yet according to the National Safety Council – in your lifetime you have a greater chance [1 in 81,701] of getting killed by lightning than residents of Manhattan had last year of getting killed with a knife [1 in 90,503].”—AKTI President Goldie Russell
It is precisely this manner of opening a knife that Vance has now defined as a “gravity knife,” and therefore it is illegal in New York City. Possession of such knives can get individuals arrested, but the bigger prize appears to be the big bucks from retail outlets including Home Depot, Eastern Mountain Sports and Paragon Sports; all big stores identified by the New York Times as having pulled knives from shelves and sent money to the city as part of the “settlement agreement.”
Anyone familiar with the “assisted opening” mechanism now available on many knives designed by Ken Onion and other cutlery experts will immediately realize that such knives could be defined – as they apparently are now under Vance’s reign – as switchblades.
This is just another attack on the right to keep and bear arms.”—AmmoLand.com
While AKTI has been around since 1997, and has been successful in getting some changes in knife laws around the various states, KnifeRights.org has only been around for about 4 ½ years. Both were instrumental in last year’s battle with Customs over the definition of switchblades. However, suffice to say that neither group can boast the political clout of the National Rifle Association. Despite the common ownership of knives, one does not see people who commonly carry knives getting all fired up about this, and neither group has millions of members.
At least, not yet. If Vance’s approach to knives spreads to other cities, private citizens and the manufacturers and retail outlets that serve them could be in for a very nasty battle that may wake up a lot of people who, until know, have taken that knife in their pocket for granted.
For more info: KnifeRights.org. American Knife & Tool Institute.
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Comments
You have obviously not been to california lately have you. Almost everything over the size of three inches is illegal in this state in one form or another. The only grace saving aspect is that for all the faults I have seen with cops out here one issue that they do not seem eager to push is checking all knives. When I ride my motorcycle I carry wear a six inch buck knife on my belt. In my pocket at all the times is a Ti-Lite four inch and it comes in very handy when I have so hold on to something and then draw the Ti-Lite and use it one handed. They are a part of my every day wear and no one pays any attention. In fact women have asked me where they can get a Ti-Lite when they see how easy it can be operated by one hand. In the past every boy knew he passed a milestone for being responsible when his father gave him his first quality knife because it was more of a tool than a weapon. And tools that can be operated with one hand are more valued then those that require both hands.
Seems like this should be challenged using the Americans With Disabilities Act as a basis. How is somebody with only one good arm supposed to open a folding knife that requires two hands to open.
Every new district attorney, just like obama, has to leave his mark - like a dog whizzing on a tree.
This is not really that surprising, it has been done before. In the middle ages peasants were not allowed swords because they were exclusively reserved to the "upper class" knights, lords, etc. The governing classes here are trying to set themselves up as the same kind of upper class. The easiest way to go about this is to disarm the peasantry and rule by fiat (or czar). Any of this sound familiar?
Germane and to the point:
"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it...
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"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
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"Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt.
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"Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
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Excerpted from 'Atlas Shrugged' 1957
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By Ayn Rand
Further to my last:
"The claim and exercise of a Constitutional right cannot be converted into a crime."
“No state shall convert a liberty into a privilege, license it, and attach a fee to it.”
- Miller v. U.S., U.S. Supreme Court,[319 U.S. 105 (1943).]
“Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule making or legislation, which would abrogate them.”
- Miranda v. Arizona, U.S. Supreme Court,[384 U.S. 436 (1966).]
“If the state converts a liberty into a privilege the citizen can engage in the right with impunity”
- Shuttlesworth v Birmingham, U.S. Supreme Court,[394 U.S. 147 (1969).]
Further yet to my last:
U.S. CODE: TITLE 18 PART I CHAPTER 13, § 241 & § 242
I thought we were cautioned not to bring a knife to a gunfight.
Ken,
When you run out of ammo and have to chuck the pistol, what ya gonna use?
Cheers.
All this nonsense over a movie (i.e. "Blackboard Jungle"). The very idea that a having a button and a spring on a bladed weapon can make it a prohibited item is patently ludicrous.
"We are not talking about switchblades, butterfly knives,...". Really, Mr. Workman? It sorta sounds like you think there should be a distinction.
For many years, the gun rights community turned a blind eye to the prohibition on "switchblades" (probably because it was considered a "weaker cousin" to firearms, gun rights were considered "bigger fish to fry"). Well here we are 60 years later and the chickens again come home to roost.
This should be a lesson to us all: when it comes to Rights, concede nothing to the statists. Fight them down to the last punctuation mark following the last letter of the last syllable of the last definition of the last word.
"When you sit down to negotiate on what you already have, you lose." - Rep. Marie Parente
There must come a time when we shake our fists at these ruling elitist pigs and say, "No more!"
It will be interesting to see how the 2nd Circuit deals with Maloney, James M. v Rice, Kathleen docket# 08-1592 in light of SCOTUS remanding that back to the 2nd for further consideration after the McDonald decision. While McDonald took the spotlight, Maloney was also taken to SCOTUS, this was the case over nunchacku. It will be interesting to see how "arms" is twisted (pun intended)
Of note in this, while Sotomayor apparently lied in her Senate testimony about her views of the 2nd in light of Heller, she did recuse herself from the SCOTUS review of Maloney, as she was sitting on the 2nd Circuit at the time the case was heard there. Could it be because there were five people present who wouldn't stomach her doing otherwise?
Was there not also an attempt recently to turn the federal law regarding switchblades on it's head to include one handed openers? Didn't that fail?
Knives are arms, and while a gun is nessicary for gunfighting, knives never need reloading.
According to NYS Penal law 265.20 exemptions, there is an exemption for legal possession of switchblades and gravity knives for use while hunting and fishing by those those holding a valid fishing or hunting license. I wonder if Vance knows that. I wonder if the companies he has screwed over are aware of that. I wonder IF THE DEFENSE ATTORNIES know that.
After reading this all of a sudden I'm feeling 'stabbity' ! ! !
The US constitution was adopted in 1787 and in those times a well dressed gentleman wore a sword. It is why men's shirts and coats button left over right, to avoid the sword hilt getting snagged on clothing when blades are drawn from their scabbards.
where has tarring and feathering gone, where are the sons of liberty?
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