Free Republic

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution undisputedly protects the individual right to own and carry firearms for self-defense, sport, and other uses. But the amendment actually says nothing about guns; it refers to "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms," of which firearms are just one example of what dictionaries define as "a means (such as a weapon) of offense or defense." In Massachusetts, last week, that resulted in a decision by the state's highest court striking down a law against switchblade knives.Protected by the Second Amendment "We conclude switchblades are not 'dangerous and unusual'...

In 1999, Hawaii enacted a categorical ban on possessing, carrying, and using butterfly knives or “balisongs.” The knives had been legal to possess before that time. In 2020, the ban on butterfly knives was challenged in court. The District Court upheld the ban. The ban was appealed to the Ninth Circuit. On August 7, 2023, the three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the District Court, ruling the Hawaii ban was unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court Bruen decision (June of 2022) was cited in the ruling. Of particular interest is the logic used by...

The bill to repeal New York’s Gravity Knife Ban, A5944, which would stop the bogus arrests and prosecutions on Gravity Knife charges of knife owners carrying common folding knives in New York City has been transmitted to Governor Cuomo. If you live, work or travel in New York CALL the Governor TODAY and ask him to STOP the OUTRAGEOUS arrests and prosecutions in New York City! Click on the link for details on calling, emailing or faxing.

People who talk and write about the Second Amendment focus on firearms. There is nothing wrong with that. Some people go off into the weeds on nuclear weapons, but the cost of obtaining one for non-state actors is prohibitive and covered in minute detail by thousands of pages of regulations. Consider the other end of the spectrum. That end is clearly covered by the Second Amendment. Consider how much protection the Second Amendment gives to items other than firearms. Items which are used and carried every day by tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of Americans. This was driven home...

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...

With Donald Trump as President, now is the time to reform federal knife laws and to protect knife owners from abusive state laws.Two different bills have been introduced, one in the House, H.R. 84, by Knife Rights, and one in the Senate, S. 1092, by American Knife and Tool Institute (AKTI). The two bills are based on continuing efforts by both groups. They are superficially similar, but differ in crucial details. Both bills are fairly short. As with all legislation, you have to read the language very carefully and critically to understand some of the differences.The Knife Rights bill...

Demonstration knives from Knife Rights’ Federal Civil Rights Trial to stop bogus New York City gravity knife arrests. The four on the bottom left are actual gravity knives. On October 12, the New York State’s ACLU affiliate, the NYCLU, joined the NRA, the NAACP, the New York Times editorial board, the Legal Aid society, the office of Court Administration, and the Village Voice in support of Knife law reform.This unusual set of allies was brought together by the heavy handed abuse of the current knife law by New York City prosecutors, especially District Attorney Cyrus Vance.As many as 80% of...

Todd Rathner is a talented freedom fighter.  I have been impressed with his abilities for several years.  I met him again at the Gun Rights Policy Conference in Tampa.  Todd is the lobbyist for Knife Rights.  The accomplishments of Knife Rights for the last decade has been tremendous, impressive, a tiny organization fighting far above its weight class.  Knife Rights says they have opened a second front in the war to restore the Second Amendment.  They are correct, and they are winning significant victories every year.  I have written about Knife Rights before.  Doug Ritter is one of the...

While congressional Democrats and Republicans go head-to-head over gun control, proponents of a smaller, often overlooked facet of the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms pursue a battle of their own—the right to carry a knife. Knife Rights, an Arizona-based advocacy group aimed at ridding states of existing bans on specific types of knives, is leading the fight against restrictive knife laws across the U.S. “Protecting knife rights is the second front in the defense of the Second Amendment,” Todd Rathner, director of legislative affairs at Knife Rights, told The Daily Signal.

Open carry is unrestricted at the NRA annual meeting in Louisville, Ky, this year.  But with presidential candidate Donald Trump speaking at the Leadership Forum, the Secret Service set up a system to stop the entrance of people with guns and knives.  Doug Ritter of Knife Rights realized that the carry of pocket knives is common with people across the United States, and that it is a major inconvenience to trudge a half mile back to a parked car to deposit a pocket knife after walking through a quarter mile line to hear the speakers.The procedure was simple.  Hand...

The restoration of the right to keep and carry weapons continues in Oklahoma.  On 20 April, SB 1159 was sent to Governor Mary Fallin for consideration. The infringement on the carry of weapons had been put into law not long after Oklahoma became a state in 1907, during the early “progressive” era.    There are several sections listed in the 1921 Oklahoma Criminal Code,  pages 523 to 525, published in 1921.  The sections covering the carry of weapons are sections 1798 through 1806.1798 is the state constitutional guarantee of right to keep and bear arms, which then perversely grants...

At Swords & Dreams Reptile Rescue in West Allis, owner Tom McNeil sells lots of knives of nearly every size and description. Until this year, though, his line did not include switchblades, "out the fronts" or butterfly knives, all long considered contraband on Wisconsin streets. His customers kept telling him they would be legal soon, McNeil recalled. "But I've been hearing that for 20 years." This time, it's true. In February, Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill that repealed the state's ban on automatic knives and pre-empted all local government efforts to regulate knives by blade length or other characteristics.

The wide and deep reform of Wisconsin Knife law, signed into law by Governor Scott Walker, went into effect on 7 February this year.  At the signing ceremony, the Governor and others were given commemorative automatic knives. The inscription on the Pro-Tech TR-4 includes the Wisconsin Seal, Governor  Scott Walker's name, and a commemoration of the event.  Representative Kathleen Bernier, Senator Terry Moulton and Travis Hakes, a peace officer who suggested the reform to Representative Bernier, all received Hogue EX-A01 automatic knives to commemorate the occasion. Laws in Wisconsin do not go into effect immediately.  They have to be...

Knife rights is having a good year.  In Wisconsin, a reform bill to de-criminalize switchblades for concealed carry permit holders and police was determined to be an insufficient  by the Assembly Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety.   A strengthened reform bill, to include knife preemption and decriminalization for the State, was written and passed as a substitute amendment, by a bi-partisan vote of 8-2. The bill was passed by the full House on 27 October. The bill number is AB 142.  Yesterday, 20 January, the Senate passed the bill by unanimous voice vote.  It is likely that Governor Walker will sign...

Two popular bills that would reform antiquated knife laws in Texas are being bottled up by a Democrat legislator.   Both bills have bipartisan support, and passed the House unanimously.  One bill adds knives to the preemption law for the state, so that localities cannot pass insane knife laws that turn a person carrying a pocket knife into a criminal by walking from one side of a street to another, without any notice.  These bills are enforced very selectively to "get" people that the police cannot arrest for other crimes. One correspondent from Texas, reported a conversation with a San...

HB 3884, which repeals the Texas prohibition on many popular knives, has passed the Texas house.  It is clear that knives, especially knives such as Bowie knives, swords, and daggers, are arms protected under the second amendment.  But these arms were banned from carry in Texas, along with handguns, during the carpetbagger government takeover of Texas after the Civil War, or War between the States, if you prefer.  When the Texas legislature reformed the law with shall issue concealed carry permits, they did not include knives. The law was very selectively enforced.   One correspondent from Texas put i, reporting...

Knife RIghts are Second Amendment RightsKnifeRights.org Washington, DC --(Ammoland.com)-  Knife Rights is pleased to welcome American Knife and Tool Institute’s (AKTI) support for Knife Rights’ signature initiative — new federal legislation to protect the travels of law-abiding knife owners from a patchwork of conflicting local laws.Conceived by Knife Rights in 2010, the recently-introduced legislation is the product of three years of groundbreaking work by Knife Rights. The Knife Owner’s Protection Act (KOPA) is patterned after a federal law protecting the travels of law-abiding gun owners, but with significant improvements addressing decades of courtroom experience with that law. “Knife Rights recruited...

<p>WASHINGTON, Nov. 18, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Knife Owners' Protection Act, H.R.3478, has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Matt Salmon (AZ-05). H.R.3478 would protect the right of knife owners to travel throughout the U.S. without fear of prosecution under the myriad patchwork of state and local knife laws.</p>

Quietly, with almost no attention from the old media, a strong second front has been opened in the fight to restore the Second Amendment. There can be no doubt that knives, tomahawks, and other edged weapons were meant to be included as arms protected under the Second Amendment. They were commonly used weapons in the militias of the Revolutionary War, and had been part of military equipment since the dawn of history. Opponents of individual rights have been able to dig up a few town safety ordinances regulating the storage of gunpowder or the firing of guns in urban centers....

What is being defined as a “snub” of Gun Talk – the popular syndicated national Sunday radio program – by the popular Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) has ignited a fury in the firearms community, and late Wednesday afternoon, this column learned that the Knife Rights organization has also entered the fray. Doug Ritter, chairman and executive director of the activist knife group, confirmed to Examiner via e-mail that he had sent a letter to WWP Public Affairs Director Leslie A. Coleman, questioning what he called the “irrational basis” of what appears to be “discrimination towards firearms and, by association, the...