Screw all gun and knife laws. Wholly unconstitutional.
In my state, I can carry a concealed gun and switchblade, no license necessary. That’s the way it should be nationally.
How a ’50s-Era New York Knife Law Has Landed Thousands in Jail
41–50 of 168 posts
Re: How a ’50s-Era New York Knife Law Has Landed Thousands in Jail
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lawyers aren’t the ones who propose the laws, or write them, or vote on them. Professionally, lawyers are the ones who represent people in disputes. Arrogant jackasses like you are what give techies a bad name.
Over 40% of Congress are lawyers, http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/lawyers_no_longer_dom...
The rest are Realestate agents... what does that tell you?
Re: How a ’50s-Era New York Knife Law Has Landed Thousands in Jail
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe that any knife that can be opened one handed would qualify, no? This would be a "gravity knife": https://www.amazon.com/Victorinox-Swiss-Trekker-Pocket-Knife... For context, I carried one of these throughout college for random boxes, cutting wires, etc.
Wait a minute, I have one of those and they're hard enough to open two-handed, your arm would break the sound barrier before you could flick this thing with enough speed to open it one-handed. Is this really considered a gravity knife?
Grab the blade and flick it while holding the blade. The weight of the handle will pull it open (at least partially). That is enough to qualify under this law unfortunately.
Re: How a ’50s-Era New York Knife Law Has Landed Thousands in Jail
#44New York (State and City) has an obsession with blaming weapons (and potential weapons) for crime, they have a web of arcane and nonsensical laws which tend to penalize common people who want to believe that the laws are reasonable, and are surprised to find out just how unreasonable they are. The officials of course love these laws. They've made the public so wary of "weapons" that it's valuable for them to invent as many "weapons offenses" as possible.
I wonder if New York's approach to weapons laws has roots in their switch from slave state to free state (which was late for the region) like so many laws in other states. Texas took until the '90s to manage to annul their prohibitions on the concealed carry of handguns (they were no-issue up until 1995) which were clearly initially intended to be enforced selectively against the emancipated.
Re: How a ’50s-Era New York Knife Law Has Landed Thousands in Jail
#45Save a life, bin that knife. Only criminals need knives. /british-persona That said, shouldn't the retailers be prosecuted for being in legal possession of the item prior to sale? They legally own all of the products in their inventory
The article mentions that most of the knives would have been law-abiding when sold, but due to wear, the blade hinge loosens enough that an officer can flick it open.
So it's a compliance issue. Then the law is fine. A person should be responsible for keeping their property legally compliant, be it automobile, knife or propane tank.
That said this is a silly law.
Re: How a ’50s-Era New York Knife Law Has Landed Thousands in Jail
#46This is a single symptom of a larger issue, namely an excess of laws to the point that any law can be arbitrarily used to prosecute you if you are of an unwanted class, race, etc. Add on top the police quota system and you have a recipe of this type of injustice that runs the gamut, from antiquidated knife laws to the drug war. To me, this is largely a result of lawyers fucking ruining everything they touch, and then…
Locally someone recently got charged with possession of burglary tools for the hammer and pry bar they used to pull a small safe out of a home.
It seems to me that the motivation for such a law to apply to such a common tool is for prosecutors to have a tool to leverage during prosecution.
Re: How a ’50s-Era New York Knife Law Has Landed Thousands in Jail
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Over 40% of Congress are lawyers, http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/lawyers_no_longer_dom...
The rest are Realestate agents... what does that tell you?
That people who want to pursue a career in politics know that a career in law or being very rich is helpful?
Did you know 70% of programmers have a degree in computer science?
Re: How a ’50s-Era New York Knife Law Has Landed Thousands in Jail
#48It's the Village Voice, which is a pretty bad source, but I've read most of the article anyway, expecting a definition of 'gravity knife' at some point and now given up.
Yeah, I the description of the law is buried pretty deep in the article:
Under Penal Law 265.01, a gravity knife is defined as any knife that opens with “the force of gravity or the application of centrifugal force” and has a blade that locks into place by means of a “button, spring, lever, or other device.”
Re: How a ’50s-Era New York Knife Law Has Landed Thousands in Jail
#49IANAL, but in such an absurd knife case, on the jury, why not just vote to acquit, for innocent? As I understand the situation, a juror can vote whatever based on whatever, for any reason or no reason, and never give their reason. So, for a nonsense knife case as in the OP, really just a way for a lot of lawyer politicians to posture before the public and a lot of other lawyers to throw innocent citizens in jail just…
A lot of people don't know about this or jury nullification. In particular, one juror from TFA says they felt compelled to vote guilty.
Re: How a ’50s-Era New York Knife Law Has Landed Thousands in Jail
#50I used to carry a pocket knife in in NYC. Nothing huge, just a 3 inch folding knife clipped to the inside of my front pocket. On some random day near Times Square a cop asked me about it. I noted that he checked the hinge to see if the blade would fall under its own weight. I didn’t realize how close to a criminal charge I was. In the end he cited me for $50 because the clip of the knife was visible.
The cop was nice and I was polite and respectful but it should also be noted if I was black I think the outcome would be completely different