NY: Village Voice Comes out for Knife Law Reform

Gun Watch ^ | 14 January, 2015 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

The Village Voice of New York City has come out in favor of knife reform legislation.   The abusive prosecutions under this law have, no doubt, been going on ever since its passage in the 1950's.   Knife Rights has been in the forefront of this fight, and has an ongoing court case, noted in the Voice article.  The abuses have become increasingly severe in the last 10 years, with The Village Voice noting that as many as 60,000 people have been arrested.  From the Village Voice:

Assemblyman Dan Quart will introduce a bill today to adjust the language of the state law, which was originally passed in the 1950s and was aimed at a switchblade-like weapon called a "gravity knife." In recent years the law has been enforced almost exclusively in New York City, where it has been used to arrest thousands of suspects carrying commonly available pocketknives. Construction workers, artists, and many others who use pocketknives for work have found themselves caught up in the aggressive enforcement.

Quart's bill would allow criminal penalties only when a suspect has "criminal intent" for the knife in his or her possession; currently, simply possessing a knife that can be opened with the flick of a wrist, the legal standard long accepted by the courts, can land you in jail, or even draw significant prison time. Amanda Wallwin, Quart's chief of staff, said "we expect it to pass easily...the real battle is in the senate."

 The text of the reform bill proposed by Assemblyman Quart is virtually the same as the old statute, with removal of he "gravity knife" from the possession paragraph.

The standard "can be opened with a flick of a wrist" has not been interpreted to mean that the knife is designed to be opened that way, or that the person in possession of the knife can do it.  It has been taken to mean that the knife qualifies if *any* person is able to do it.  Someone who is well practiced and trained, who tries a few different techniques, can get just about any folding knife to do this.   I have regularly done it with Swiss Army knives like the one pictured above.  There have been situations in New York City where a common pocket knife is passed around between two or three officers until one who is skilled or lucky enough is able to open the knife this way.  They only feel the need to do it once.  Then the arrest is made.  Many NYPD police are critical of these arrests.  From theerant.yuku.com, a NYPD discussion forum:

This collar is a favorite of the " NEW BREED" of cop. The saddest part I would see the rookies stalking the subways between 5-7pm to catch a construction worker wearing one so they could get there number and Big CPW arrest. This is why the public hates us. Cause discretion has been taking away and it's all about numbers. All created by the likes Of Raymond Kelly, Espo, Mike " raisin balls" Marino, and the other scumbag brass that created this disaster of a dept we currently have. Yeah will get a raise. Keep writing guys. Just remember the man behind the numbers madness Michael Marino scammed 3/4s. He was fvcking cops for low activity the whole time he was plotting to scam a 3/4 pension.

The comment above is on a discussion about the first Village Voice article on this subject, from 7 October 2014.   This paragraph shows the Voice's thought on the subject:

 Nonetheless, under the department's unique interpretation of Penal Code 265.01, almost every pocketknife on the market today can be considered a gravity knife. It's as if authorities in New York City were using an antiquated law against flintlock muskets to prosecute BB-gun owners.

The Voice probably does not know that BB guns are considered the same as firearms in New Jersey, and unlicensed ownership gets you a mandatory three years in jail.   Because common airsoft guns are semi-automatic and hold more than 15 rounds, it is unclear if they are considered "assault weapons" under New Jersey law.  Many common .22 hunting rifles are defined as assault weapons in that state.

It is nice to see the Voice come on board for common sense, even if it is after 60 years and a recent decade of abuse with thousands of citizens arrested, fined, extorted, and imprisoned for a "crime" that should never pass Constitutional muster.

There is no reasonable reading of the second amendment in which knives would be excluded from its protection.  They are, and always have been, arms in common use by the militia from the revolutionary period until the present day.

©2015 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
Link to Gun Watch

[marktwain]

It all starated with the Sullivan act in 1911, a bill passed by a criminal to protect criminals.

[marktwain]

The strange birth of NY’s gun laws:

http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-strange-birth-of-nys-gun.html

[cripplecreek]

Rick Ector spoke on the racist roots of gun control the other day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoRfAtjgEtk

[from occupied ga]

This collar is a favorite of the " NEW BREED" of cop. The saddest part I would see the rookies stalking the subways between 5-7pm to catch a construction worker wearing one so they could get there number and Big CPW arrest. This is why the public hates us

NYC and NYC police. Why would anyone have any sympathy for either of the aforementioned. And for any of the FR cop suckers who still want to claim "the police are on our side" (whatever that means) You're delusional.

[Old Sarge]

NYC and NYC police. Why would anyone have any sympathy for either of the aforementioned.

[sport]

It is not exactly the police the jackboot lickers worship. It is the authority they wield. the jackboot lickers and badge worship authority. They have an innate desire to be controlled and commanded. And what best represents the control and command concept? The police.

Free people cannot be controlled nor commanded, they must be led. For any number of reasons that concept has went the way of the dodo bird. That is why we are in the command and control phrase. those in authority do not think that the sheep have the intelligence to make important decisions for themselves. They must make them for the sheep. That is where we are today. That is why the powers that be are not concerned about the sheep having privately owned firearms. they know that when they have all their control mechanism[s] fully ready to be put in place, all they have to do is enact a law stating "Turn in your weapons, guns, swords, knives, forks, knives, farm implements" . It will be enforced by the control freaks, not the authorities. The control freaks will turn in those who do not comply with the law to the authorities. Why? Because it is the law and must be obeyed. The National Socialists used the same technique on the Germans and Vichy French from probably 1934-45 in Germany's case and 1940-44 in France.

[Boogieman]

What I find infuriating is that for thousands of years of civilization, it was considered standard practice for any man who wasn’t an aristocrat to carry a knife with him at all times. You can’t build much of a better case for a basic right than one that has been assumed by all since before history.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***It all started with the Sullivan act in 1911***

Earlier. Ah for the days when a man could carry a REAL knife.

[The KG9 Kid]

The reason for Assemblyman Quart's knife law revision bill and The Village Voice article covering the issue isn't because they're supportive of 'construction workers' being allowed to carry knives, but because liberals in NYC want to be able to carry pocket knives for their own self-defense. They're just masquerading the issue as an assault on their police using the law as a shakedown method against minorities; their real mission is allowing the not well-to-do liberals who can only afford to live in high crime areas to be able to defend themselves.

These big city dwellers in NYC put those knife laws in place against the barbarians, just as they did with laws prohibiting unregulated tobacco street sales against people like Eric Garner. Now, unsurprisingly, they wish to be exempt from the laws they made -- but of course they can't be seen as hypocrites. Best to blame the police here and support minorities at the same time for the laws the liberals put in place, you see.

The urban anti-gun liberal, when pressed on the need to acquire a weapon for safety concerns, peculiarly focuses on acquiring a blade to carry surreptitiously while remaining steadfast against guns for anyone but the police. I've personally witnessed the phenomenon in San Francisco and NYC, and I've heard of the same mindset in London UK.

This is the fallout of living in a highly-populated big city: With so many people packed into so little area it's certainly possible to live there without yourself being a victim of violent crime, but impossible not to learn of a violent crime happening to an acquaintance or co-worker or in a location that you pass by on a daily basis. When one person is assaulted in a given spot, there's 100,000 New Yorkers who can say "Gosh! I walked right by there only moments [before/after] it happened. The city is just turning into garbage!". Meanwhile, only fifteen blocks away an hour later another assault is happening again and so another 100,000 people can make the same exclamation. It all adds up.

In California, there was in recent years a pepper spray and 'stun gun' fad amongst the liberals, but those items are illegal in NYC if I'm not mistaken. California once proposed 'stun gun training' classes before citizens were allowed to acquire them, which of course served to greatly reduce the number of metro-area liberal women who sought to carry a 'stun gun'.

Such is the notion of the urban liberal with their gun and knife 'control' measures: They're only controlling themselves and are astonished to find their laws only serve to work against them.

[Billthedrill]

Assisted-opening knives are very popular and practical these days (my EDC knife is assisted-opening), but they can’t be shipped to certain New York zip codes due to this law. It’s pretty silly. If I need to open a package or strip a wire, it’s probably in my hand at the moment. The only gang I’m in is the Over-the-Hill Gang.

[Bratch]