Well, you know, this is going to be one of those questions that probably just doesn't have an easy answer.
Almost any folding knife can be opened by centrifugal force, so even common lockbacks could be considered to be switchblades under such a law (and they actually have been in some cases). I would think that police and prosecutors would be more likely to consider knives with newer mechanisms (like the axis lock) to be switchblades or gravity knives though. They wouldn't understand that the way it functions is completely different from the switchblades that lawmakers wanted to outlaw. A prosecutor might say something like, "You press a button, apply centrifugal force, and the blade pops into place. Isn't it a switchblade?"
You'll probably never get a definitive answer as to whether or not axis locks are switchblades, but there are things you can do to research it: Ask police officers their opinion, write to DAs and the AG to get their opinions, and look for court cases in your state that discuss switchblades. Since the axis lock is so new though, I doubt you'll find a whole lot of info about it specifically.
I personally wouldn't worry about carrying an axis lock, but you never know... Butterfly knives are sometimes considered to be switchblades under laws like this, and look at how much more difficult it is to flick a butterfly knife open.
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Cerulean
"The hairy-armed person who figured out how to put an edge on a suitable rock made it possible for us to be recognizably human in the first place." - J.K.M.
[This message has been edited by cerulean (edited 05-15-2001).]
