Free Republic

On 25 May, 2018, Governor Edwards of Louisiana signed HB 892 into law. The bill now becomes ACT 341, which reforms Louisiana knife law, removing a 1950's era ban on switchblades.  From wafb.com: BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) – On Friday, May 25, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards signed 79 bills into new laws. The bills he signed are as follows:(snip) ACT 341 – HB 892 Provides relative to the illegal carrying of certain knives. The wording of HB892, now ACT 341, is as shown at legiscan.   From legiscan.com: (4)(a) The manufacture, ownership, possession, custody or use intentional concealment...

Republicans in the New York Senate still seem lukewarm to any change, allowing a bill championed by Assemblyman Dan Quart, a Manhattan Democrat, to languish for months without a vote. And for the first time, a powerful opponent to reform — Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. — is coming out of the shadows and going full-bore to scuttle Democratic efforts. It’s an odd look for a self-styled progressive prosecutor like Vance. Outside of a few reactionary — and baldly hypocritical — Republicans in the statehouse, Vance stands more or less alone in his public opposition. For two years now,...

In a bipartisan vote yesterday, the New York Assembly voted 99 - 12 to pass A9042A, Knife Rights' gravity knife and switchblade reform bill. A9042A, and its companion bill in the Senate, S6483A, add clarifying bias-toward closure exclusions to the state switchblade and gravity knife definitions, similar to that included in the revision to the Federal Switchblade Act that Knife Rights helped pass in 2009. This clarifying exclusion should prevent the bogus Gravity Knife arrests and prosecutions of honest law-abiding individuals in New York City who are carrying common folding knives, tools that are legal to carry everywhere else in...

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...