Why are knife control laws so strong in the United States as opposed to gun control?
I was realizing it would be nice to have a knife with auto opening for boxes, etc., basically a switch blade or similar, and I found out that they are super illegal in my state (and/or there are length restrictions, or both sides of the blade can’t be sharp, etc), but I can go into a sporting goods store and buy a pistol and ammo in under 30min.
Shooting open an Amazon box seems inefficient. What is up with restrictive knife-control laws??
They aren’t: This is 100% state dependent. Some states have extremely permissive laws allowing you to carry anything from a switchblade to a greatsword if you want.
Yes, and gun laws are state dependent as well. I’m not talking about federal law (though technically the Federal Switchblade Act of 1958 is still in force), I’m saying that arguably the majority of states in the United States have more permissive gun laws than knife laws, and it’s absurd.
Most of the truly ridiculous knife laws are in states with equally ridiculous gun laws. A few have been challenged under 2A grounds with some degree of success but it just isn’t being pursued that much.
When a moral panic happens, a lot of things get blown out of proportion. A good example was the panic relating to D&D and satanism. There was a huge panic sometime in the 50s or 60s about the police dealing with young thugs with concealed switch blades, which could be hidden, and then deployed one handed so fast a cop couldn’t draw his weapon fast enough. So this panic got a lot of laws drawn up to ban any switch blade.
Since then, the there are knives that skirt the law by not having a spring which force the blade open, instead a tension bar. There are still types are illegal to carry if a Cop would find out you have it, like “Out the front” switch knives.
The stupid part is, there are plenty of “one hand deployable” knives on the market that are 100% legal. But the laws never get revisited. In my state it’s illegal to have a out the front switch blade, yet a bunch of high end OTF knives are for sale at a sporting store. They just post a sign that says “Know your local laws”, which some how makes it okay to sell.
If anyone has more to add, or corrects, let me know.
It also goes to show how laws made during the moral panic don’t go away even decades after that panic fades.
This is often in mind when responsible gun owners are critical of more gun laws. The govt won’t go “that was silly of us here’s your bit of freedom back” even if a law objectively had zero positive effect
