I apologize if this is the incorrect place to post this. If so, moderators please move it to the appropriate area. I realize this is a forum concerning historical weaponry (not a day goes by that I don't visit here), but I'm also pretty sure most of you carry pocket knives for day-to-day use. The following are excerpts from www.kniferights.org article concerning the issue:

The U.S. Government is after your Pocket Knives! In a sneak attack, U.S. Customs has proposed revoking earlier rulings that assisted opening knives are not switchblades. The proposal would not only outlaw assisted opening knives, its overly broad new definition of a switchblade would also include all one-handed opening knives and most other pocket knives!

It has been a battle of a million little cuts for the most part, with occasionaly court and legislative fights thrown in. Little did we guess that the first major battle at a national level wouldn't come head on, but with government bureaucrats trying to sneak it by everyone, avoiding a more conventional legislative battle, which they know they'd likely lose.

U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP) just a bit over two weeks ago on May 21st proposed revoking earlier rulings that assisted opening knives are not switchblades. The proposed new rule would not only outlaw assisted opening knives, its new broad definition of a switchblade would also include one-handed opening knives and could be easily interpreted to cover most other pocket knives, even simple old-fashioned slip-joints. At this point, one-hand opening and assisted opening knives are 80% of U.S. knife sales (per AKTI industry sources). For most knife companies, they represent all or the majority of their product lines. These are the knives Americans take with them to work and to play everyday.

Remember: Customs has set a 30-day time limit to respond via snail-mail. Email is not allowed.

Please see www.kniferights.org for more information.

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A decade or so ago, I cut out a Dear Abby or Ann Landers column about a paramedic that saved a pregnant woman's life using a pocket knife to kill a large boa or python that had wrapped itself around her. I'll have to dig it out.

This just disgusts me. I carry a pocket knife with me every day, everywhere I go. I use it all the time for all kinds of craft projects, opening packages, and outdoor activities as well. My dad does as well. And I can't even count the number of times my family and friends have said, "Do you have your knife on you?" They've actually come to rely on me having it. My knife has done nothing but help me and the people around me since I started carrying one.

The government is making carrying a pocket knife criminal. Meaning everyday folk like you and I are reduced to the same level as a street thug with a weapon. This is something that the public should be able to vote on because our rights are blatantly under attack here.

Hey doesn't the US constitution say you have the right to bear arms? :confused: Yet you're not allowed to carry pocket knives! :confused:
Or does this mean you can sharpen part of your guns! :D

If I had interpreted the law correctly, here in Italy is all in the hand of the cop who stop you: he can rule that you don't have a resonable motive to have a pocket knife (work's safety concern...).

Alternately, you have to transport it packeted so he cannot be easly opened (in case of a street fight).

Now we assist in an explosion of kills by kitchen knifes...

I remember reading on one of the many forums (maybe this one) I frequent that in the UK they were trying to ban points on kitchen knives and the like - 'cos of all the stabbings! Can you imagine trying to fillet a fish or joint a cut of meat with no point to your knife!! :eek:

Some times ago a player of the Como Football hit an adversary with a single fist and killed him (he was registered by a camera).

When we will be expect to wear box gloves everytime?

I believe that they are planning to make footballs far larger to the size of beachballs and everyone will be be wearing those fake sumo suits...

...I think they are doing it on some Japanese game shows! :D

All joking about knives and laws without points aside, I read the (60+ page) customs regulations proposal last night.

For background, the Federal government passed many years ago a law banning the importation and interstate commerce of "switchblade" knives- a class of items defined by specific characteristics. The US Customs agency was charged with interpreting this law and applying it to allow or prohibit the traffic in knives. Many states and local jurisdictions have been using that interpretation in their own laws covering the ownership and carry of knives.

Now, the Customs people are attempting to quietly update their interpretation of the Switchblade Act, which if I understand the language in their document correctly, would cover assisted opening knives and pretty much anything with a blade that can be opened with one hand. This interpretation is strictly in opposition with the specific language laid out in the Switchblade Act, and also moves contrary to the large majority of precedent set by state and local courts in which assisted opening, and one-hand opening, knives were found not to be considered switchblades.

On the surface of the issue, this regulatory change is not a change in law that will affect the carry and use of knives. However, many states and local jurisfictions will certainly use the updated Customs interpretation in their own laws governing switchblades, and effectively make criminals out of the millions of law-abiding Americans who own and carry knives. Also, it will put severe economic strain not only on companies that import knives, but also companies that produce knives in the United States- with a high likelihood of putting most of these companies out of business. This would cost countless jobs and put even more strain on the national economy.

Perhaps the worst part about this is how the Customs people are attempting to do this without any public exposure of the issue. If not for Kniferights.org, this one might have slipped by. I am certainly going to write to the Customs Agency arguing against the change, and also asking for an extension on the pointlessly brief 30-day consideration period. A similar letter is going to my representatives in Congress, to whom the Customs agency is accountable.

If any of you care about this issue, please do not hesitate to visit Kniferights and read their recommendations for making your opinion known. There may not be much time left before another one of our rights quietly vanishes.

Further comment: I don't believe it helps to joke about "not needing very much knife to kill a person" and such things. Part of the bizarre Customs rationale for reinterpreting the ban is how they believe the original intent behind the Switchblade Act was to prohibit all knives that can be used as weapons- no matter how strange that might seem to all right-thinking people who know how to use their one-hand opening knives responsibly and safely.

And it is known that these people watch knife company and other forums looking for evidence to support their beliefs, and sometimes even obvious humor doesn't translate well in text posts when they read it. So maybe let's not try to confuse the issue too much.

Here the law is different, the entire concept being:

"Do so that an enraged man cannot have access to a weapon"

So the safely transport of any weapon (from rifles to maces and sharp swords to knives), the obbligation to maintain open a hunting gun when not actively shotting, the need to dimostre the necessity to have a knife in the pocket, and so on...

We have introduced the difference between knife (normally intended in a single blade) and dagger (two blades), the second being always restricted in the use and transport.

I concur with Dan that we have not to give a hand to some good-hearted that think that to ban every sharp object in the world they can seriously protect the man from himself: more, with our knowledge of weapons and fight we can demonstrate that the ban of weapons can only do so much for the safety of the streets (In every pratical aspect of the life there is a safe Middle Earth)...

Or we will really transform in this...
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"As far as I know, his godness is very strict about bladed weapons..."

Flight 1549 (Husdon miracle) passenger BIlly Campbell said that the lift raft was tethered to the plane. And the plane was sinking. They would have cut the tether - if any one of them had a pocketknife.

If I ever have to kill someone I will not use a gun or a knife... I will use a "peace sign". I would hit em over the head with the sign and stab em with the post. I would love to see "peace signs" banned.

Hi Dan, I certainly don't mean to belittle any information but I can only shake my head in disbelief when such threads offer little more than prophetic despair. I have no knowledge of the knife rights group but the AKTI guys have been around for a good long time now. While all such efforts are somewhat helpful, it is often diversity that can actually be counterproductive. I have read the attachments and agendas (on more than one site) and am not dismissing any awareness or efforts. It simply becomes a very loose snowball of support when discussions tend to revolve around what may be, when what is needs more attention. There are 48 contiguous states in the U.S. and few of them share what is offered up as state knife law. Then there are local ordinances as well.. Massachusetts is no less likely to adopt some form of the rulings by customs but to pronounce such findings as nothing but doom and gloom in such topics is just absurd. Maybe I'm just a glass mostly full type of guy (even if I may at times just seem full of it).

I will say I have been activating my Kershaw a lot lately but it has never been a perfect work knife for me. I should have bought one of the original Random Tasks.

Cheers

GC

This is ridiculous. What complete and utter nonsense. Who the hell would use a pocket knife/clip knife for a weapon in the first place. This is just another example of blaming the tool for the deeds of the very few.

It's ignorance to remind the people who's got the strings. It's not about protecting anyone or removing any sort of threat at all. Goes through, I protest, ignore it, etc.

M.