Average Joe carry law.

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Jan 21, 2003
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I'm looking for a site that will provide easily aquirable information on general knife carry laws. I have done searches here as well as on search engines, but have not come up with any real explanation of knife laws in my states of interest (IN & MI). If anyone knows of good sites, or search techniques, I'd appreciate it. I'm not looking for auto laws, as those are obviously far too intursive. I just wanna know if my neck knife is illegal and how much sh#t I'll get from a large folder.
 
Originally posted by shootist16
Have you looked here:

http://pweb.netcom.com/~brlevine/sta-law.htm

Mr. Levine's site provides a good starting point, however, at least for my state of SC, his entry is inaccurate due to ommisions.

From His site:
South Carolina - 16-23-460. Carrying concealed weapons... Any
person carrying a dirk, slingshot, metal knuckles, razor
or other deadly weapon usually used for the infliction of
personal injury concealed about his person shall be guilty
of a misdemeanor, shall forfeit to the county or... to the
municipality the weapon so carried concealed an fined...
or imprisoned... [exempt person's own premises and peace
officers].
- 16-23-430. Carrying weapons on school property. It shall be
unlawful for any person [except officials] to carry on his
person, while on any elementary or secondary school
property, a knife, with a blade over two inches long... or
any other type of weapon, device, or object which may be
used to inflict bodily injury or death... a felony.


He omits the all important last sentence of 16-23-460!:
The provisions of this section do not apply to rifles, shotguns, dirks, slingshots, metal knuckles, or razors unless they are used with the intent to commit a crime or in furtherance of a crime.
 
That site's IN law is only 3 lines and only pertains to autos. I would like to know what length folder I can carry concealed in IN & MI, and what length I can carry fixed in said states. I want to know if my neck knives and pocket folders are legal.

Any recommendations???
 
Best place... Police HQ's, a short trip and you'll have the correct info.

NE has a 3.5" blade limit on a pocket knife, anything less isn't 'considered' a knife. Can also carry any knife, of any size, as long as it's out in the open where the public can see it.

http://www.knifeart.com/kniflawbysta.html
 
Ok the best place is straight from the horse's mouth.

Do a search on Google:

Indiana Code of Laws

as a convenient example.

Near or at the top of the results,You should end up with the state's website, often the legislative branch, that has all of the laws for that state.

http://www.state.in.us/legislative/ic/code/
Was the first result
However, the web version may not be up to date for the present year but instead will be up to date for the previous year; this should be specified somewhere on the page.

There should be a search function for the code of laws.
Some of the Search functions can be rather quirky; Ohio uses a 4 frame Window.:eek:

Now here is the second hardest part.
You will need to do multiple searches with various keywords to find the pertinent laws.
WEAPON and KNIFE are pretty good bets, along with BLADE and CONCEALED

The very hardest part is figuring out just what the legalese means!
:mad: :rolleyes:
Ohio for example is rather grey and nonspecific as far as Knives.

And there you have it.
After A quick scan (you should do it yourself to verify; It is always best to get the information firsthand) shows indiana to be very leinient; however I may be missing something as no school knife laws came up. No blade lenght limit or concealment limits came up. There were the usual complete and total prohibition on automatics and propelled blades. Also a somewhat vauge and broad (par for the course) total prohibition on "Chinese throwing star".

Good Luck.
 
The short simple answer is that if you are traveling, any knife you carry may be illegal at some point. Too many laws, at too many levels, is the first problem. You can be in full compliance with Federal law, and still run afoul of state law. You can be in full compliance with both of those, and still run afoul of county law. You can be in full compliance with all three of those, and still run afoul of local ordinances. And finally, as if that were not enough, you can comply with all of the above and still manage to violate the rules of a particular building or area.

The second problem is the vague wording of some of the laws. Some of this is probably accidental, a case of legislation written by people with little or no real knowledge of the item the intended to regulate. But at least some of it is intentional, to give legitimate leeway for circumstances. Phrases like "other dangerous knife" and "with intent to do harm" fall into this category. This is not alway unreasonable, a fifty-five year old businessman, dressed in a suit and tie, sitting on a park bench at lunchtime a hundred feet from anyone else, calmly peeling an apple with a Spyderco Civilian may not draw a second glance from a passing LEO, while a twenty year old, dressed in current "gang-banger" fashion, walking down the street at night in a crime ridden neighborhood while opening and closing a Meerkat repeatedly might very well get his fingerprints and mugshot taken. The danger here lies in the fact that there are thousands of shades of grey between these two pretty black and white extremes and just where the line falls between question and don't question, arrest and don't arrest, indicte and dismiss, or convict and acquit is not always going to be either clear or consistent.

This brings us to the third potential problem, these laws are not enforced by machines which all think alike, they are enforced by people. Four different LEOs may see the same thing, one may ignore, the second question and release, the third question and confiscate the knife, and the fourth arrest you. Even the same LEO can take different actions on different days. This incosistency may be caused by something as irrelevant as what kind of day the LEO is having, or something as relevant as an informant's tip that a gang war is in the making. Even something as seeming cut and dried as blade length can be suject to interpretation, I showed the same knife to several LEO's and asked how long the blade was, some measured the way the manufacturer did, edge of the handle to the tip, but others measured only the sharpened edge and came up with a shorter blade (perhaps even more interesting was the fact that none of them had any accurate way of measuring it, I had to supply the ruler too, which leads me to think, once again, that a call in the field would be more subjective than objective). DAs, judges, and juries are also not one hundred percent predictable, so if you are arrested, the outcome in all but the most obvious cases is anything but certain. But do keep in mind that, to the average non-knifeknut on a jury, a neck knife or tactial folder is going to raise a whole bunch more red flags than a Case stockman. Like it or not, fair or not, that's just how it is.

The final factor is the general demeanor of the person who is carrying the knife. Some folks can hail a NYC cop and calmly ask for directions while carrying an unregistered handgun, others would be sweating bullets and squirming worrying that the two inch slip joint locked in their briefcase was going to get them set away for life just because they saw a squad car cruising down the block. Attitude can make a great deal of difference when it comes to who gets questioned and who doesn't, and that's really the bottom line because if you avoid the initial questioning, you avoid everything that could come after it.
 
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