Butterfly Knife 'Local' Laws?

[GroxTerror]

I'm interested in buying a butterfly knife, so I checked out some websites for its legality in Virginia. I got this first response from Google:

"In Virginia, the balisong is legal for conceal and open carrying according to state law, although localities can have additional knife laws and restrictions."

What does the 'localities' bit mean? It doesn't specify what exactly this means or where it is restricted. Does anyone know where these additional restrictions apply?

 

[BenLong1018]

It means that the law may differ from city to city.

 

[zzyzzogeton]

It means that the law may differ from city to city.

Also it means that you would need to check not just the ordinances of the city/county you live in, but also city by city to see if any cities/county you may visit have any ordinances that differ from state law in legal length, type of knife, and concealed vs open, etc. Just because something is legal to carry in one city doesn't mean it is legal in all cities, if the state does not have a preemption law that overrides local ordinances.

To my knowledge, VA is NOT one of the states that has passed preemption legislation.

 

[glistam]

It means the laws of the county you are in and the laws of the city, as well as any county or city you take the knife too.

Note that this is a general catch-all warning for all knife laws anywhere in the United States except for a handful that have preemption. It doesn't mean that there are local laws, just that there could be. As someone who regularly researches statutory law, I have never actually found any local laws about knives in Virginia (I live just over the border in MD) but it is a big state so I cannot reasonable say there are none. If you provide an example I am confident I can look it up for you. In my experience overall in the US local knife ordinances are fairly uncommon and only the biggest bustling crime-ridden urban centers tend to have them. Contrary to popular rhetoric, the cities that pass knife ordinances are not necessarily any particular party affiliation nor are they liberal, but rather tend to have an unhealthy fixation on crime and inappropriately enmeshed relationship with the local police force.