Are balisongs legal to import?

[ChungSan]

Are balisongs legal to import. I am interested about small quantities and large quantities. For example 1 or 2 might be OK but dozens would not be OK. Please help me out.

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Chung San

Butterfly Knife Exchange
www.butterflyknifeexchange.com
"A new kind of balisong store"

 

[Quicksilver27]

you want to like order from china bali companys, and have them imported here????
if you ordered dozens of them you could have them imported over here, but it would take a while for them to get here. and i think that they would be in pieces too, then youd have th put them together your self.

but i think that you could have them imported over here

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QuickSilver--"you just gotta be quick....."
http://www.angelfire.com/nj3/BalisongWorld

 

[David2584]

Yes and no. Legally its not, but obviously there are loopholes to the law because thousands of china cheapies come through to the states.

Check this out: -CITE-

15 USC Sec. 1241 01/05/99

-EXPCITE-

TITLE 15 - COMMERCE AND TRADE

CHAPTER 29 - MANUFACTURE, TRANSPORTATION, OR DISTRIBUTION OF

SWITCHBLADE KNIVES

-HEAD-

Sec. 1241. Definitions

-STATUTE-

As used in this chapter -

(a) The term ''interstate commerce'' means commerce between any

State, Territory, possession of the United States, or the District

of Columbia, and any place outside thereof.

(b) The term ''switchblade knife'' means any knife having a blade

which opens automatically -

(1) by hand pressure applied to a button or other device in the

handle of the knife, or

(2) by operation of inertia, gravity, or both.

 

[JohnR7]

>> Are balisongs legal to import. I am interested about small quantities and large quantities. For example 1 or 2 might be OK but dozens would not be OK. Please help me out.

There is no law against importing them. But customs thinks there is, and they will confiscate them, if they find 'em. There is a $5 fee and a mandatory inspection of any shipment over $100. So you have a better chance of a shipment under $100 in value. I have been told that they confiscate one in every five, and that is pretty much the way it has worked out for me. I brought in 5 small shipments, and they got the fifth one. Right now, I have an administrative appeal before the San Fransico Port Authority and I am going to do all I can, to get my shipment back from them. As far as the dollar amount, it's not worth the trouble to mess with it. But on principle, I plan to go the distance with them over this one.

They tell me, that butterflys are imported in peices, with the blades in one shipment, and the handles in another shipment. That is usually how they get them into the country, and then they put the pins in them, after they have passed though customs.
Thanks, JohnR7

 

[James Mattis]

And maybe a crate from the PRC where the paperwork says "pocket knives" isn't as strongly suspected of being evil butterfly knives as a crate of "pocket knives" from the Philipines.

Of course, if we believed that balisongs were illegal to import, it would be under the same federal law that makes switchblades illegal to ship to civilians across state lines, but I haven't heard of a balisong dealer asking for a "CYA" form on balisongs, they way they typically ask for them on autos.

They just say "no sales to California," though California is not the only state whose authority figures have decided that balisongs are covered by badly written gravity knife statutes (there is no other kind) that were typically drafted by legislators who had never seen heard of a balisong.

Murky. Murky.


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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001