Welcome fellow Marylander!
I've researched this topic rather thoroughly with police and by reading court records. Fixed blades are an interesting gray area of Maryland law. The knife carry law,
CR §4–101, states it is illegal to carry a "dangerous weapon" concealed, and lists "dirk knife" and "bowie knife" as such weapons. However, these terms are not expressly defined in the law. Because of this, a police officer discovering a concealed fixed blade has to make a judgement call, based on the design of the knife and the circumstances under which he decided you needed to be searched. Almost any fixed has the
potential to be considered a dangerous weapon, but it's not absolute.
In
Hutton v MD, a schoolteacher with no priors was stopped for running a stop sign, and when asked if he had weapons as standard procedure, revealed two Boye Basics, which are small, simple, rustic utilitarian knives. When asked why he had them, he explained he is a sculptor and they were tools, but may have accidentally messed up by revealing them when asked about "weapons" (which implies he considers them to be weapons and not tools). The officer ticketed Hutton, but the judge threw the case out later at the first pretrial hearing. There was an implication in the transcript that the judge felt the officer was being petty and picking on Hutton (for unknown reasons), as he also dropped the stop sign charge.
Most weapon charges however are simply tacked on charges when the person is being arrested for a more serious crime, such as dealing drugs, assault, burglary, stalking etc. People who mind their own business and don't act like punks don't get searched. My dad carries a machete behind his seat in his truck and it has never been found despite 5 traffic stops in the past few years. He's always nice to the cop and doesn't get argumentative, but he also doesn't reveal it when asked because it is a tool to him, not a weapon.
