Do Knife Rights Really Exist?

K

Knife Outlet

Joined
Jan 4, 1999
Messages
3,000
Gun owners owe their rights to the second amendment. No doubt about that. I was wondering if any court had ever applied the second amendment to other weapons, edged or otherwise? People talk about assaults on our knife rights. Do we really have knife rights for someone to assault?
 
I believe the Oregon Supreme Court cited RKBA in their judgement legalizing auto knives and billy clubs. Some states' CCW permits cover knives and other weapons. "The right of the people to keep and bear arms" does not exclude non-firing arms. The fact that knives are regulated as weapons should be proof that they are, in fact, arms, and should be covered by the RKBA. However, I have not noticed any support by the pro-RKBA organizations for non-firing arms. The AKTI (in what may or may not be a prudent political maneuver) justifies the necesity for the legality of knives purely from a "tool" perspective, and not from a RKBA perspective. Our Constitution guarantees that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," but when, in blatant defiance of the Constitution, our state, local, and federal governments prosecute citizens for exercising their rights, do we have any rights at all?
 
(Rant face on!) :mad: Hell yes. The right to life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness. A citizen of the US, in fact any human being, has the right to do whatever the heck they want as long as it isn't hurting anyone else or society as a whole. We have the right as citizens of this country, living under this constitution, to remind our idiotic government that every freedom is our right, and only those that we deem to be unacceptably dangerous can be taken away by law. Anything not so specifically defined as illegal, is a part of our constitutionally protected freedom - i.e.liberty.

In the US of A, freedom is the default, possessed by the citizens. It is not granted by the government. Only those liberties that we specifically agree to give up, are not ours. All other liberties are ours, and are no business of the government's. This is one of the truths considered to be self-evident in our Constitution.:mad: (rant face off) :cool:
 
Well said Steve.

Let's keep in mind that at the time the Constitution was written, swords and knives were were very much a part of everyday life. Nowhere does it single out firearms.

Paul
 
Originally posted by Knife Outlet
People talk about assaults on our knife rights. Do we really have knife rights for someone to assault?
Click to expand...

The Constitution was written as a restriction on government. It does not give us any rights, it only protects them. The Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms, not just guns. Some people even owned cannons in those days, and everyone carried knives and/or axes.

When we became independent from England, every free Citizen became equal to the king. That is one reason, in addition to loyalty, that the founding fathers were against titles of nobility. Becoming a nobel means you are still subject to the king, so anyone with a title of nobility is of lower status than an American Citizen. Anyway, in a nation made up of soveriegns, everyone is equal. So we had to form a government, restrained by the Constitution. The government is meant to serve us, not rule us. If our rights can be legislated away, we really have no rights. Of course, we have a lot of traitors in government subverting the Constitution.
 
Originally posted by Knife Outlet
Gun owners owe their rights to the second amendment. No doubt about that. I was wondering if any court had ever applied the second amendment to other weapons, edged or otherwise? People talk about assaults on our knife rights. Do we really have knife rights for someone to assault?
Click to expand...

Hey Fred, great thread!
(No poetry intended.)

First off, a minor correction of wordage.
We don't owe our gun rights to the 2nd Amendment.
The Bill of Rights doesn't grant any rights at all. Rights cannot be given. Anything given by the government can be taken away by it too.

Secondly, as others have already pointed out, it's not about guns and it's not even about knives or swords. It's about our right to defend ourselves to ensure our individual continued survival.

Can the government take it away?
No, but they can outlaw that right.
People will still fight back when attacked, and if they can, they'll still use a weapon. Some things can't be legislated out of existence no matter how hard some politicians try.

Ironically, if you ascribe to the belief that our "knife rights" are protected by the Second Amendment, the knives most protected by the Constitution would be "Fighting Knives." There is no Constitutional Amendment "guaranteeing" or "granting" us the right to carry tools!
:D


We
 
I don't think the issue of whether the 2nd Amendment applies to the individual right to keep and bear arms as opposed to the maintainance of a militia has ever been directly presented to the Supreme Court.

That said, I feel reasonably confident that the Court, as presently constituted, would come down on the side of individual rights. I think this would apply to knives or guns or anything used to defend freedom. That's what the founding fathers were trying to protect.
 
OK, so as I judge the responses our right to bear arms isn't granted but protected by the second amendment and arms could just as well include edged weapons as it does firearms. Is a knife a weapon or a tool? We all know it can be either. So can a firearm and so can a hammer. So does the "purpose" or intended use of a knife determine whether or not it is protected under the second amendment? In other words, would a military fixed blade be protected because it appears to be weapon-like but a swiss army knife or a Leatherman tool would not because it appears to be a tool? How would a court determine the difference when one gets to the gray area. Is a 3" bladed locking folder a weapon or a tool? Or more importantly, is it protected under the second amendment or not? I'm not sure the answer to this question is obvious.
 
It does not matter. The Constitution does not give the government the power to regulate knives. Period.
 
Originally posted by Knife Outlet
How would a court determine the difference when one gets to the gray area. Is a 3" bladed locking folder a weapon or a tool? Or more importantly, is it protected under the second amendment or not? I'm not sure the answer to this question is obvious.
Click to expand...
Since there's no reason anyone would want to ban a tool, any attempt to make any knife illegal is an attempt to restrict RKBA, and is therefore unconstitutional. If they try to ban it, it's because it's a weapon. Right?
 
Fred asked the question that I was going to ask...only more eloquently than I would have. Will they try to use out own terminology against us? We say it's a tool, so we can't use 2nd amendment arguments in court unless we're very clever, right? I'm talking about the realities of how the courts and lawyers can twist things around. Then if they say, "You said it's a tool, so 2nd amendment rights don't apply?" Then we ask, "Okay, if this is a tool, and I'm not allowed to have it, then is my hammer illegal? What about my chainsaw?"

Where does it start and end in the reality of the "justice" system?
 
Yea Steve, Rant on Brother!

I think even in 1776 as today the gun was the viable unit of civil defense. Certainly the sword was considered a weapon of war, the fact that it wasn't mentioned suggests that Swords were not considered implements of social revolution and furthermore that they were not even considered to need protection from govenment.

After the widespread use of firearms they recognized that no force armed with edged weapons could expect to overcome a force armed with rifles.
When the man comes for you today it will be with a squad of heavily armed quasi soildiers armed with full auto mp5s and m16s.
Go ahead and flip out the benchmade if you feel frosty but I'd argue that is no defense.
Also a reason for them to spray your body into hamburger.
No, knife laws are to protect the "law abiding?" citizen who wouldn't think of carying a knife, from the obvious criminal element who would be carrying knives, in spite of the law abiding element who feels safer with knives. aka us.

As far as knife laws you are prretty much at the mercy of state law and precedent and the discretion of the particular law enforcement of your area.
I would say as soon as people are asking you about your knife it better damn well be a tool......You know that look they give you.
Better to avoid the situation all together.
 
I am headed the OTHER WAY asap..............
or double tapping the sucker!!!!!
Either way.........no knife fight here!!!! :p
 
to champion the right to keep and bear knifes
as protected under the 2nd amendment. However if
states can pass laws governing firearms, which they
do, then they also have the right to pass laws
regulating knifes, which they do, assuming knives
fall under the 2nd amendment (which seems very plausible
to me).
 
From my old college dictionary, last copyright 1956, Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary-- "arms, 1. Instruments or weapons of offense or defense."

"... the Right of the People to keep and bear ARMS, shall not be infringed." Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Of course, knives and swords are included in the 2nd.

But to think that today, our Constitution has any meaning to most politicians, bureaucrats, media members, academicians, is laughable.

L.W.
 
Exactly the point. If the consitution prevented government from regulating knives, then the federal, state and local laws would or could be declared unconstitutional. As examples, federal law prohibits most interstate commerce in auto knives and federal law prohibits the importation of auto knives, butterfly knives and poorly defined things like "gravity" knives. Let's not forget the near disaster that befell Columbia River last year.

State laws covering the ownership and use of knives is nearly as varied as the number of states. For that matter, the same can be said about guns. I can carry a concealed handgun in my state of Indiana. I can't in the neighboring states of Ohio and Illinois. Neither can residents of Ohio and Illinois. I can carry a butterfly knife in Indiana but not an auto. In California, a citizen cannot carry a butterfly knife but can carry an auto (with a short blade.) What is good for Indiana is apparently not good for California and vice versa.

So, obviously, government regulates knives like it does guns and that regulation is far from being consistent. My fear is that government doesn't include knives in the protections afforded by the second amendment and, in the long run, we could be losers because of that. We have an industry lobby group called AKTI. Is it doing something to get knives to enjoy the same protection that guns enjoy in the U.S.? Or, if not, is someone else?
 
Originally posted by Knife Outlet
Exactly the point. If the consitution prevented government from regulating knives, then the federal, state and local laws would or could be declared unconstitutional. [QUOTE}





The government does not follow the Constitution. The courts rule in the most statist and totalitarian ways they can get away with. The Constitution, in effect, is just a piece of paper, at least since Wislon started us on the path to socialism.








We have an industry lobby group called AKTI. Is it doing something to get knives to enjoy the same protection that guns enjoy in the U.S.? Or, if not, is someone else?
Click to expand...


I hope not. Guns are far more restricted than knives are, and we are in danger of haiving our right to keep and bear firearms being destroyed. When I visit my family in Illinois, I carry a folder clipped to my pocket with no problems. If I carried my Browning Hi-Power on my belt (legal in Arizona) I'd have a batallion of JBTs shooting at me.


As far as improving the law, the only solution is to shrink the federal and state governments back to their original roles. Maybe arrest all politicians subverting the Constitution to destroy our rights and deport them to Saudi Arabia or China.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top