California Butterfly Law

Hi Fred,

I am currently in southern California on a visit to family. A good friend of mine works at a cutlery shop down here. I can't directly answer your question but: He was saying that the owner of his shop originally intended to carry the BM42 "for the collector market", figuring the $160 tag would keep the indiscreet away.

Well - he got so many preorders that he (the owner) got scared and decided not to carry them.

To me, this sounds like its legal to have them - just not carry. However - I will email my buddy and find out for sure. He claims they have a copy of the current California penal code posted on the wall of their shop (the part relating to knives).

I'll get back to you as soon as I can....may be a day or two.

Bob

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"The search is half the fun!"
 
Hi again Fred. I got a reply from my friend that works at the knife shop (can't remember the name - but it's in the Cerritos Mall...
maybe Advance Cutlery?). Anyway - what he told me is in quotes below.

"Bob, California will let you "collect" them, which means it should (heh-heh) follow that you can OWN them. You may NOT, however, CARRY said items. Your guess is as good as mine when it comes down to the fine line between CARRYING and TRANSPORTING (i.e. in the box it came in, wrapped in silk, etc., etc., etc.)"

Hope this helps!

Bob


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"The search is half the fun!"
 
I was at San Francisco last March and I wen't
to this knife shop. He has jaguar balisongs on his display. Maybe it was just illegal to carry
smile.gif
 
Fred, Heres what I found on Bernard Levine's site reguarding what you asked. It sounds to me like you can own, but not transport, sell, display for sale, ship, trade, lend, give to anyone, or transport in a vehicle.

Simple enough Ehhhh...............

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
California - Penal Code Section 653k.

Every person who possesses in the passenger's or driver's area of any motor vehicle in any public place or place open to the public, carries upon his or her person, and every person who sells, offers for sale, exposes for sale, loans, transfers, or gives to any other person a switchblade knife having a blade over two inches in length is guilty of a misdemeanor. For the purposes of this section a "switchblade knife" is a knife having the appearance of a pocketknife, and shall include a spring-blade knife, snap-blade knife, gravity knife or any other similar type knife, the blade or blades of which are two or more inches long and which can be released automatically by a flick of a button, pressure on the handle, flip of the wrist or other mechanical device, or is released by the weight of the blade or by any other type of mechanism whatsoever...

****California case law:
Butterfly knife which has blade in excess of two inches is "switch-blade knife" within meaning of... 653k. [Attorney General's opinion 11-19-1985.]
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<



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Clay
www.balisongxtreme.com
Because......
getting 'em open
is half the fun!
 
Keep in mind that the letter of the law posted on some wall or even in some leather-bound law book is only part of the story. You have to look at what prosecutors have taken to court and what courts have decided. If you really want to know, this site, http://www.legalopinion.com, will get you the answer fairly cheap, but not free.

CA law, as it has been explained to me by eBay's lawyers, considers balisongs a form of switchblade. This means that pieces with blades under 2" are fine for all purposes including concealed carry. However, manufacturer, buying, selling, or trading, bringing them into the state, or public carry (overt or concealed) is not allowed. "Collectors" may retain pieces they owned before this law was changed, which was back in the early 1980s. Now, some CA dealers do sell balisongs with blades longer than 2". They usually do it quietly and "the law" usually looks the other way since they really haven't been a problem.

I am not a lawyer, though, and so I offer this information without recourse (which is a lawyer's way of saying if it ain't true, don't blame me).



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Chuck
Balisongs -- because it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!
http://www.balisongcollector.com
 
The reason Benchmade moved its whole operation to Oregon is that California illegalized the manufacture of balisongs and, especially, automatic knives for any market. One of Benchmade's big markets at the time, and still today, was, and is, automatic knives for the military.


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Chuck
Balisongs -- because it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!
http://www.balisongcollector.com
 
Thanks guys:

Some of the smaller California municipalities have brought lawsuits against out of state mail order companies that ship "illegal" knives into California. I don't think any of them have ever gone to court since the mail order companies cave and agree to stop shipping them into California. Several internet dealers refuse to ship butterflies because of this. Obviously, if the law pertains to carry and not ownership, then it may be illegal for a Californian to "import" a butterfly from another state, but it isn't illegal for an out of state business to export one since we non-Californians are only subject to California laws when we're physically in California. I guess I'll try the legalopinion.com idea. I'd like to nail it down so if I'm sued, I can respond some other way than simple capitulation. I haven't had the motivation to have my lawyer research it. It's just too expensive.

It is interesting how different "lawmakers" view the "common good" of society. In our state (Indiana) butterflies are perfectly legal anywhere, any time, any way. There is no mention of them in the statutes at all. Switchblades, on the other hand, regardless of blade length, are illegal to own, not just to carry. If I bring one into inventory here I'm guilty of a misdemenor. So I can't even offer them for sale to legal interstate buyers even though federal law provides for that. It is curious. Take care.



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Fred
Knife Outlet
http://www.knifeoutlet.com
 
Fred,

Just because the words butterfly or balisong don't appear in the state laws doesn't make 'em legal. If state courts have held that butterfly knives are a form of switchblade, then they are, for practical purposes, illegal. Many states outlaw "gravity" knives and here's another opportunity for courts to hold that a butterfly knife is a form of gravity knife (though how this is true I don't know since for most manipulations, the artist struggles against gravity).

There's also a certain element of what your state's attorney general thinks is illegal. If the AG doesn't think a butterfly is a form of switchblade or gravity knife, then cases involving them won't be prosecuted and, thus, the courts will never get to decide. So, to determine what you can and can't get away with in a given state, you have to check not just the state laws, but how the AG has interpreted those laws and how the courts have ruled. Keep in mind that counties and cities can make their own laws more restrictive than the state's.

While I haven't used them myself, I'm really kind of pleased to have found this legalopinion.com place and I'd be very interested to see how anyone who tries them finds their services in this area of law. It's not free, but for actually getting a lawyer to do something for you, it's pretty cheap.



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Chuck
Balisongs -- because it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!
http://www.balisongcollector.com
 
I was talking to a cop 'bout a month ago about balisongs and one thing he said was that if a knife opens using centrifugal force than it is illegal to carry. Still makes me mad since any of us can open a folder with the flick of our wrist-just as fast as a switchblade (IMHO). Hope any of this helps.



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Cameron

"It takes a killer...to stop a killer"
 
Someone posted a while back a case in NY.Same deal, the state tried to manipulate the switchblade,gravity law to include butterfly knives,but it didn't work.Common sense prevailed from the bench that day.I beleive it was stated that it took multiple manipulations to open it into a usable knife and an additional step to actually lock the blade into place.I read the statute from the calif. penal code posted and it boggles my mind how they can include a butterfly knife in their code under switchblade,gravity knife.How sad and unfair.Glad I don't live in california.chow,Ralph
 
A police office is often not the best person to ask for a legal opinion, especially in a complex and obscure area of the law.

A lawyer goes to law school for five years receiving about 1800 classroom hours of instruction from learned scholars and professors of law. A law student can also expect to spend about 5000 hours outside of the classroom reading, studying, and working on the law. Then, they study often a year or two more to pass various state Bar exams.

A would-be police officer spends several months training. In those months, they have to learn everything from handcuffing to report writting and public relations. They typically get about 40 hours of classroom instruction in "the law" and that focuses on those areas of law that the officers are expected to need most. Weapons laws are touched on, but not studied in depth.

So, while police officers are great people and I certainly mean them no disrepect by this, their knowledge of the law is often quite shallow.



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Chuck
Balisongs -- because it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!
http://www.balisongcollector.com
 
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