Posted on 07/13/2012 3:27:23 PM PDT by marktwain
July 11, 2012: Knife Rights is pleased to announce the filing of Pennsylvania HB2548 which would repeal the Keystone State's ban on the possession of automatic knives and enact Knife Rights' signature Knife Preemption Law. The legislation was drafted by Knife Rights Director of Legislative Affairs, Todd Rathner, and was introduced by Rep Michelle Brooks (R-17). Bipartisan Co-sponsors include Rep. Marc Gergely (D-35) and Rep. Jeff Pyle (R-60). Addition co-sponsors can be found on the bill's sponsor page.
The bill's sponsor, Rep. Brooks said, "when Knife Rights brought to my attention the need to reform Pennsylvania's knife laws, I was pleased to sponsor this legislation as a way to make things better for the people of Pennsylvania. In a state like Pennsylvania which cherishes its outdoor heritage and to respond to the needs of our many sportsmen and sportswomen, as well as rescue teams, knife law reform just makes good sense."
"We are pleased to have gotten the ball rolling on this needed piece of common sense legislation," said Knife Rights Founder and Chairman Doug Ritter. "Pennsylvania law should fully respect the rights of knife owners and eliminate the irrational restriction on automatic knives." Knife Rights began pressing for introduction of the legislation late last year after a member from Pennsylvania highlighted ongoing issues with Pennsylvania knife law that he was willing to assist in addressing. Knife Rights quickly prepared the draft legislation and sought out the sponsor and co-sponsors. (Knife Rights' original announcement of action on this Pennsylvania bill back in November, 2011, can be found here: http://bit.ly/vE1oW0)
If you are a PA resident, please contact your state Representative and ask them to support this Knife Rights Legislation. (Click here if you aren't sure who your Representative is.)
In addition to repealing Pennsylvania's ban on the possession of automatic knives, Knife Rights also included its signature preemption language in the legislation as well. Preemption prevents cities and towns from passing ordinances inconsistent with state law, which would otherwise result in a confusing patchwork of different knife laws that are difficult or impossible for honest citizens to navigate. A "right" should be treated the same throughout the state. Knife Rights has pioneered the passage of knife law preemption throughout the country on a state by state basis. This past May Georgia became the fourth state to enact Knife Rights' Knife Law Preemption and Missouri this week became the second state to repeal its switchblade ban.
Knife Rights would like to thank the industry's American Knife and Tool Institute for its support of this legislation.
New Hampshire, Arizona, and Utah already have strong knife preemption protection.
If a gang kid pulled out a switchblade today, it would seem so retro as to be almost endearing. All laws about knives need to go.
When I as a kid, in the Fifties in Ohio, every kid had a pocket knife. And most of them were switchblades we ordered from ads on the back page of comic books.
What about pointed sticks?
I never understood the logic of banning automatic opening knives. Once again, I think it just boils down to the “scary” factor. If you think about it logically, a criminal using any knife in a crime is going to have ANY knife open and ready for use before he commits the crime anyway.
just don’t bring one to a gun fight.
Mostly promoted by the play, then the movie “West Side Story”. It became part of the category of what I call “trendy” laws. Laws that generally make no sense, but legislatures like to go with trends. As they do not want to go to the trouble of writting new legislation, they change existing legislation that already exists a little, and push to pass it in their own state.
Examples of this are the stupid switchblade knife laws, the concealed carry laws, and a failed example, the “assault weapon” laws.
It’s a very small and inconsequential example but here goes. Last week my boys and I were kayaking down a river. At one point, we jumped in and clipped our kayaks to our PFD’s to float along. Somow, my son snagged a thread form the rope in his braces and was in an uncomfortable position. I reached in the pocket of my swimsuit and pulled out my spring loaded Gerber pocket knife, swam over, flicked it oen easily and removed the thread form his mouth. That’s justification for a very easy opening knife.
arms control law are meant to control the law abiding people. Criminals will always use whatever weapon they want because let’s face it, they are criminals.
The result is always the criminal is left to do what they normally do and the law abiding guy loses his freedom.
You'll put yer eye out!
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