Proposed Law makes rigging knives illegal

[Ctskip]

Ross,
While on the boat, I keep my Marlin spike and palm in the repair section of my tool kit. My rigging knife, I keep with me. I wear it on my belt off my right hip, as I'm right handed. Should I need the knife in an emergency, it'll be there. Sometimes I don't have the ability to go and fetch it. I need it right then and there. Sometimes while on other boats doing fun things. Where as with the palm and Marlin spike, I'm usually doing a specific job and have those tools out at the ready. Coming and going to the boat, the rigging knife (used to be) part of my boating attire, just as my dock sliders are. Now the rigging knife has it's place in my companionway next to the binoculars and fire extinguisher. Hopefully I'll never need it in case of emergency. Forget about someone else's boat. I'll be hurting should a real emergency arise where I need it to free someone from the rigging. I like to be prepared and some day I might just have to suffer the consequences of stupid legislation.

Keep it up,
Ctskip

 

[Paul J. Rusyniak]

July 10th, 2009 SENATE PASSES HATCH, CORNYN, PRYOR AMENDMENT TO KEEP OVER-REACHING GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRATS AT BAY WASHINGTON – Legislation by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) to prevent government bureaucrats from overstepping common sense and their proper bounds under the guise of safety has cleared the Senate.

Adopted as part of the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill (H.R. 2892), the amendment by Hatch, Cornyn and Pryor clarifies the definition of what types of knives can be classified as switchblades. It is a legislative response to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) proposal that would have, in effect, reclassified most pocketknives and pocket tools as switchblades.

“Without this amendment, there is a real danger that 80 percent of the pocketknives sold in the U.S. could be classified as illegal switchblades, which would hurt knife and tool manufacturers across the nation” Hatch said following the Senate’s vote late Thursday. “The unintended consequences of the CBP’s definition could be that state and federal criminal courts could construe Leatherman-type multi-tools equipped with one-hand opening features, as well as folding utility knives with studs on the blunt portions of the blade to assist with opening, to be illegal. That is absurd.”

For import and interstate commerce purposes, the CBP is seeking to reclassify all knives with assisted-opening mechanisms as switchblades. The Hatch, Cornyn and Pryor amendment makes it clear that one-hand opening assisted knives are not switchblades. This amendment’s exclusionary language conforms to the original intent of the existing statute.

Hatch said the amendment complies with the principles of the federal Switchblade Act of 1958, which clearly defined what constitutes a switchblade – a definition that the courts have consistently upheld over the years as a knife that is opened by activating a button on the handle.

“That law makes clear that, without a button, a knife is not a switchblade,” Hatch added. “This amendment will continue to prohibit switchblades, but not at the expense of knives that were never meant to be categorized as a switchblade.”