Is it Legal??

R

RogerW

Joined
Aug 4, 2000
Messages
1
Recently purchased a Cuda 4", Tanto blade folder (CMCDA2SL). It's a Great Knife, but is it legal in California?? I'm not a LEO.

After getting the knife home and playing with it, I realized that it is a GRAVITY KNIFE(opens w/ a flick of the wrist, no need to touch the opening button). This thing opens faster than a swithblade. Showing it to several LEO's including the Sheriff himself, the opinions are split about 50/50.

I want to keep it, but don't want to jeprodize my CCW w/ an illeagal knife. Pls Help.

[This message has been edited by RogerW (edited 08-04-2000).]
 
Roger,
The CUDA Quick Action is, in our opinion, NOT a gravity knife. There is always alot of debate and rumor about what a gravity knife really is, but the knife was designed to be opened by sliding the thumb disk forward on the handle of the knife. No springs involved that could automatically open the blade, and it become an auto knife. The blade will rest inside the handle until the thumb button is activated. Almost any of the single blade locking folders on the market, especially liner locking knives, can be opened with a snap of the wrist. Some it takes more 'snap' than others.

We have been shipping the CUDA Quick Action series knives all over the US for 2 years, without any legal problems. I would caution you that sometime LEO's, though well intentioned, are not the best legal advisors. You can also get alot of 'interpetation variation' from officer to officer and jurisdiction to jurisdiction. I hope this helps with what can be viewed as a legal grey area by some, but is actually caused by some pretty poorly written laws. Thanks for being a customer!

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Stay Sharp!
Will Fennell
Camillus Cutlery
www.camillusknives.com
 
If thumb-push disk that is attached to the tang of the blade through a slot in the handle is considered a thumb stud "attached to the blade," then it comes under the thumb-operated one-hander exeption in Section 653K of the California Penal Code, a section that all we enlightened knife people in California know has no good reason to be there in the first place.

We won't really know until a cop finds one in the possession of one of somebody whose day needs to be ruined, and the city attorney somewhere thinks the case is worth taking to trial, and the defendant loses, and the defendant takes it up on appeal, resulting in a published appellate court decision for better or worse. You can buy a few hundred CUDA knives for what that would cost in legal fees.

Meanwhile, I and other California dealers in sharp objects, as well as a couple of California knife distributors, openly sell them right here in this state, and we'll continue to do so until somebody tells us to stop.

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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001


[This message has been edited by James Mattis (edited 08-04-2000).]
 
I don't know if it's legal, but it certainly is NOT a "gravity knife" since it can be opened without the aid of gravity or centrifugal force.
I have an old Bucklite I can "flick" open but it's just a lockback and nothing more.

[This message has been edited by allenC (edited 08-05-2000).]
 
I spent most of two days at the downtown Los Angeles criminal courthouse about three years ago as an "expert witness" for the public defender in a case of a bum with a knife where the cop was able to make that Pakistani POS folder flip open on the tenth try, or maybe on the fifth try after the city attorney oiled it. It, like that old Bucklite, was designed to open in a normal lockback manner, and if you were somebody who fit the profile of a gang member, or maybe somebody who flunked the attitude test in some other encounter with law enforcement, that flippable Bucklite could turn into a misdemeanor in California. Unless you install a thumb stud on it. Then it's OK.
www.chaicutlery.com/knifelaw.html

The law is a "humble beast of burden."
rolleyes.gif



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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
 
BTW, a "gravity knife," depending on who is talking, may be strictly one where the blade is locked in until you push the button, like a springless switchblade, or it may include a "butterfly knife" or any knife that can be flipped open by me or by thee, or maybe any knife that drops when you let go of it!
wink.gif



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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
 
Another case of "blind justice". The bum must have had either the worse lawyer in the state or a real stupid jury (or both). That's one more reason I love the Carolinas: almost every guy I know carries a knife (and half the women too).
 
I would carry a CUDA w/o worrying about it too much, since the knife is designed to be opened by the thumb stud.

I still want a definitive answer as to whether the Lev-R-Lok is legal in CA. I've heard rumor that it's not because the opening mechanism is built into the handle, but I really want to hear that it is legal, because then I'd carry one.

BTW RogerW How the hell did you get a CCW in CA?

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Jason aka medusaoblongata
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"I have often laughed at the weaklings who call themselves kind because they have no claws"

- Zarathustra
 
The bum (a.k.a. homeless guy with a dope problem) actually had a pretty good public defender, and the jury acquitted him on that and the other knife charge. He didn't go anywhere, however, since while he was out on bail for the misdemeanor knife charges the cops looked him up again, and that time he didn't ditch the crack cocaine fast enough. And the county never did get around to paying my bill.

By the way, in the USA outside schools and other zero-tolerance zones, "knife posession" busts on "solid citizens" are not what most knife cases that go to court are all about. The cops have better things to do. Usually (though not always) there's something else going on that makes the authorities decide to make an issue of the knife.

There can be no definitive answer on the Lev-R-Lock until the same thing happens that I described above - get arrested, get convicted, appeal, get a published decision. Meanwhile, California knife distributors and dealers also sell Lev-R-Locks out in the open, and will until somebody tells us to stop.

Any number of things could have happened to that case some attorney asked about months ago, to have made the case fade from public view. For instance the prosecution could have decided it was more trouble than it was worth and dropped it. Or the defendant could have plea-bargained this way or that. And a jury verdict one way or the other wouldn't have been a "precedent" in any case.


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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001


[This message has been edited by James Mattis (edited 08-06-2000).]
 
The basic rule of thumb for CCW in California is that you can get one in the counties where you don't need one.

And there's no such thing as a CCW permit for a "dirk or dagger." Knives, when carried as weapons, are more politically incorrect then guns, and before that they were more politically incorrect than swords, speers, war clubs, etctera.


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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
 
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