Knives Are the New Guns in Lawmakers’ Second-Amendment Expansion

[Purveyor]

Lauren Etter

State lawmakers are bringing knives to the gunfight.

Expanding the battle over the right to bear arms, U.S. legislatures that relaxed laws after the gun lobby’s decades-long push are now loosening restrictions on switchblades, dirks, daggers and poignards.

The charge is being led by a group whose leadership includes a wilderness-survival entrepreneur, a National Rifle Association board member and a “Joy of Cooking” co-author who travels with a 7-inch Santoku knife for slicing thyme-stuffed pork loin roasted on a spit over a campfire.

“We call it the second front in defense of the Second Amendment.”
Todd Rathner

Called Knife Rights, the group claims support not only from Republicans, but also from urban Democrats concerned that the laws are used to target blacks and Latinos. Since 2010, it’s helped roll back bans in nine states and is lobbying legislatures in a dozen more.

“We call it the second front in defense of the Second Amendment,” said Todd Rathner, director of legislative affairs and sole paid lobbyist for the Gilbert, Arizona-based group.

On April 29, a Texas legislative committee heard testimony on a bill that would repeal a ban on daggers, swords, spears and the Bowie knife, a blade inspired by a defender of the Alamo.

more...

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-06/knives-are-the-new-guns-in-lawmakers-second-amendment-expansion

[Jake Stern]

1. If you're gonna have guns

then it does seem a tad hypocritical to ban knives.

[ileus]

2. Knives are for peeling apples.

[benEzra]

3. If you don't see the need for a group like Knife Rights,

then look at the situation in New York City.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2014/10/nyc-gravity-knife-law-arrests.php

There are those even now trying to justify the Freddie Gray shooting on the basis that he had an ordinary assisted-opening folding pocketknife clipped in his pocket, even though (1) he never attempted to draw it, (2) such knives are not illegal in Maryland, and (3) one-hand-opening pocketknives are as mundane as car keys, wallets, cell phones, and pocket change in most of the country.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2015/04/freddie_grays_death_in_police.php

[Eleanors38]

4. Ban on Bowie Knives? Hell, I slash cane with one when the bolo dulls.

[beevul]

5. Yup.

It should be interesting to see how our anti-gun friends respond to this issue.

Very interesting indeed.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

6. Okay, but only if we restrict magazine capacity.

[Puha Ekapi]

7. Swiss Army...

...knives may qualify as high capacity knife devices. See what happens when you bring a knife to the gun rights?

[sarisataka]

8. high-powered assault knives

need to be restricted to military and police only