Boundaries of Legality

I believe it comes down to not being able to tell what is legal and what isn't. In some cases the law is clear enough to follow (switchblades, ballistic knives) in other cases not so much (dirk, bowie, dangerous knife). Using NY for example the penal code started out pretty straightforward:

(1) He possesses any firearm, electronic dart gun, electronic stun gun, gravity knife, switchblade knife, pilum ballistic knife, metal knuckle knife, cane sword, billy, blackjack, bludgeon, metal knuckles, chuka stick, sand bag, sandclub, wrist-brace type slingshot or slungshot, shirken or "Kung Fu star"; or

(2) He possesses any dagger, dangerous knife, dirk, razor, stiletto, imitation pistol, or any other dangerous or deadly instrument or weapon with intent to use the same unlawfully against another; or
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And became this:

The possession by any person of any dagger, dirk, stiletto, dangerous knife or any other weapon, instrument, appliance or substance designed, made or adapted for use primarily as a weapon, is presumptive evidence of intent to use the same unlawfully against another.
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First law is totally reasonable, second is impossible to comprehend and therefore comply with.
 
RE "...or any other weapon..."

One could argue that homo sapien teeth, hands, and feet are designed to be weapons. Maybe we should have all our teeth pulled out and have all our limbs amputated. One could argue that the human skull is a weapon. Bye for now. I'm off to behead myself. Talk soon......
 
My point is it is intellectually dishonest to assert love for a nation built upon laws and simultaneously advocate ignoring those laws.
 
dougshoe said:
RE "...or any other weapon..."

One could argue that homo sapien teeth, hands, and feet are designed to be weapons. Maybe we should have all our teeth pulled out and have all our limbs amputated. One could argue that the human skull is a weapon. Bye for now. I'm off to behead myself. Talk soon......
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Do you read for comprehension or amusement? Taking a fragment of a sentence and treating it as an entire thought may be amusing, but it doesn't make a point. The whole thought includes the words "or any other weapon, instrument, appliance or substance designed, made or adapted for use primarily as a weapon". Unless you wish to assert that any part of the human body was "designed, made or adapted for use primarily as a weapon," you've added nothing to the discussion.
 
tryppyr said:
My point is it is intellectually dishonest to assert love for a nation built upon laws and simultaneously advocate ignoring those laws.
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It's also unethical to pass laws so vague you and I cannot determine if we're in violation or compliance, and then apply them capriciously. I might add it's also unethical for the State to assert a right to defend oneself, and then invalidate any tools that one might use to do so.

I should close with this - I do not profess a love for a nation built upon laws, but rather a nation built upon individual rights. There's a huge difference.

HH
 
HeavyHanded said:
I should close with this - I do not profess a love for a nation built upon laws, but rather a nation built upon individual rights. There's a huge difference.

HH
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Yes, there is a huge difference. I'm wondering which nation you are referring to. Individual right without laws.... sounds a bit like Somalia to me.
 
How about laws crafted with respect for one's rights, or at least with respect for the individual's right to know if they're putting their freedom in jeopardy?


Somalia? Let's not go throwing straw men into this.

dagger, dirk, stiletto, dangerous knife or any other weapon, instrument, appliance or substance designed, made or adapted for use primarily as a weapon
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If you can look at a knife and tell if it falls into this category you should start an online reference catalog, sell subscriptions, and be prepared to represent your customers in court or defray their legal expenses if you're wrong.
 
HeavyHanded said:
How about laws crafted with respect for one's rights, or at least with respect for the individual's right to know if they're putting their freedom in jeopardy?
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I'm fine with that. Bear in mind, though, it isn't all about YOU. It's about the other guy, too... and he may not feel as if he could defend his rights adequately without some help from police... or the military. And we can't forget that the police and military are citizens too, and that they might also have opinions about how well armed the citizenry can be, while still enabling them to be effective.

Essentially, the point is, you can't expect a unilateral view of the situation to prevail. You have to take a more holistic view and understand the interconnectedness of the nation.

Granted, the situation HAS moved too far in the direction of a nanny state. Too many nervous nellies that don't trust their neighbors to clip their own toenails. But that doesn't give us license to ignore the laws. Rather, it gives us just cause to work (within the system) to change the laws and make them just and insure that they respect individual rights.

I mention Somalia because it is illustratrive of what happens when there is no effective government in place.

Whether you accept it or not, we ARE a nation built on laws. Laws that govern the lawmakers as well as the citizens. Laws that govern how courts work, and how laws themselves can be overturned or refined. You cannot guarantee individual rights without laws.

- Greg
 
The bodies of animals and people are designed to have natural defenses. The human body has several natural defenses, and one is our arms. Since a man can kill another with his bare hands (and many have throughout the centuries) one cannot deny the fact. Men cannot be denied weapons, or they would be required to amputate their limbs (Hence the phrase- "right to bear arms.")
 
dougshoe said:
The bodies of animals and people are designed to have natural defenses. The human body has several natural defenses, and one is our arms. Since a man can kill another with his bare hands (and many have throughout the centuries) one cannot deny the fact. Men cannot be denied weapons, or they would be required to amputate their limbs (Hence the phrase- "right to bear arms.")
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You, sir, are grasping at straws. The human body was not designed, let alone "designed, made or adapted for use primarily as a weapon". You know as well as I do that the law you are arguing against cannot and never would be interpretted the way you struggle in vain to interpret it.

If you can't come up with a better argument than this, you'd do better to remain silent.
 
Hmmm. That's funny. The laws of our nation are based on the fact that men were designed by a Creator.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...."
 
The choice of the word "arms" instead of "weapons" in the Constitution is interesting. The English "arm" is from the Latin "armus" meaning the joining together of the shoulder and the upper arm. Since a man's limbs cannot be denied him, neither can weapons.
 
I'm sorry, I can no longer take you seriously, and I don't wish to insult anyone, so I'll stop responding to you.
 
What about all those USA haters who staged illegal sit-ins to protest jim crow laws back in the 60's? Clearly, they did not love this country.
 
So let me see if I understand your position... if someone is willing to go faster than the speed limit or engage in peaceful protests, they should be willing to violate ANY law... is that the basic premise? Are you SURE that's the stance you want to take? Listen, if it's all you understand, I can engage in argument based on extremes. My personal opinion, however, is that such arguments prove nothing.

I'm hoping one or two folks will step forward with some well reasoned arguments for why they think we should openly disobey the law. The only reason that occurs to me is because you want to be caught and convicted so you can appeal the case to the point where the law gets revoked or rewritten... but none of you has suggested anything like that yet. You're all just providing rationalizations.
 
This has gotten off topic, as this type of discussion normally does on this site. First remember, we are ALL knife lovers or we would not be members here. There are many different laws accross the country concerning knife sales, ownership and possession. Many times these laws are not strictly enforced, but they can be, and you will have a life changing moment the day an officer decides you are in violation of a weapons law in your area. As stated above, unless you are willing to self sacafice yourself for the cause of knife law change by being arrested and fight the law as some how being unconsititional, then you should obey the law. In my years in NYC law enforcement, I ran into persons breaking NYS and NYC laws everyday. Some of those people believed they had an absolute right to do drugs, steal from those that had more than them, defend streets they deemed as their truff with deadly force against members of other "gangs", and many other things they deemed to be their "right".
As stated above, we are a nation of laws, and the respect for those laws is what has helped us to be the longest running free society in the world, and the leading world power. The right to bear arms is not a clear yes or no type of question. There are many persons who feel the absolute right to bear arms should have no restrictions, and there are those who feel weapons need to be strongly controlled by law. There are logical views on both sides of this, and that is why we have a well defined legal system with methods of reviewing laws, and changing them, and a method of punishing those who break the laws.
I am 51 now, and if you knew me in my early 20s, I was one of those "live or die" NRA types who felt any law against weapons was not a valid law, but I still follwed them. I got the needed permits to leagally buy firearms, but I longed to live in a state where I did not have to follow such strict laws. As I got older and involoved in law enforcement, I came to realise that the times you end up using a weapon for true self defense is rare, but the times you foolishly use a weapon happen everyday that people drink too much, allow anger or hurt feelings take control of that moment, or are fooling around and something bad just happens. These real life experiences have made me understand that some laws, training and conditions of possession concerning weapons does make sense to me and is needed for the general safety of the public at large. Follow the law, and seek logical changes for bad laws through the methods we have to do that in a orderly manner.
 
Some of the knife laws in the US can actually be understood. However, others are written in gibberish. For example, certain knife laws make "bowie knives" or "daggers" illegal, but don't define these terms. Therefore a person cannot know that he is obeying the law. If the law said that a knife with over a 5 inch blade was illegal (for example) then a person could measure a knife and know if it was legal or illegal to carry. On the other hand, it is impossible to know what the cop on the street will consider to be a "bowie knife" or a "dagger." For any particular knife, the answer is maybe yes and maybe no. Maybe you will get arrested and go to jail, or maybe not. No one has answered my question yet---

How can everybody obey knife laws that no one understands?

At Bike Week in Laconia NH there are always hundreds of cops. One year my friend, Harry, went around asking the cops what kind of knife was legal to carry. He got all kinds of different answers. One cop says you can carry a big hunting knife, while the other says he will arrest you for a small pocket knife. Many mentioned a "four finger rule", but the funny thing is that the supposed rule was found no where in the law. Let's hope the cop you meet has fat fingers. If our freedom depends on the cop's interpretation of knife law, then we are all in danger of arrest. All of this is pure nonsense. If we want to be a society based on laws, then we need our laws to be written in English, not gibberish, so men can understand them. Only then will there be any chance of men obeying the laws. Until that day, I will not worry about whether or not I am breaking the nonsense knife laws. If a certain cop wants to arrest me for doing nothing wrong, so be it.
 
The Declaration of Independence contains the intent of the founding fathers, while the Constitution is the completed work. The freedom of men defined in the Constitution assmes the existence of a Creator and can only be understood within that context. The existence of a Creator is said not only to be a truth, but a self evident truth. One who cannot see a self evident truth is blind. He also will never understand the freedom that the Constitution defines. Men who believe in God can be free because they rule themselves. Atheists must become slaves to the state to avoid anarchy.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...."
 
Doug, first I would love to retire to NH and have been looking at some lake front houses there as I enjoy their laws and freedom. Second, an officer can arrest you for any number of things he believes at the moment is illegal. Like it or not, the officer is viewed by the court as a highly trained professional, and his word is almost always taken as truth over the subject of an arrest, not fair perhaps, but true. You have some very strong feelings about how things should be, so may I suggest you take a few days and sit in a criminal court room to hear what really goes on. Go to arrainments, then a low level misd court where trials are rare and you will see how judges handle charges. You will understand how a group of well educated lawyers ( judges have all been lawyers first and all are sworn to uphold the Constitution) have viewed their part in the enforcemenmt of the laws. If you ask a defense lawyer to seek a dismissal of weapons charges based on legal vagueness or Second Amendment issues, he will most likely advise you to get another lawyer.
 
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