Knife Rights’ New York Gravity Knife Law Reform Bill Passes

Critter

Critter

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[Post in General approved by Spark]

Knife Rights’ New York Gravity Knife Law Reform Bill passed the Senate by a vote of 61-1. The identical Assembly version, A.5667A, was substituted for S.4769A and was the version passed.

We’d like to express our sincere appreciation to Senator Diane Savino for her extraordinary efforts and perseverance as the Senate sponsor that finally resulted in this bill being brought to the floor for a vote. Our Assembly sponsor, Assemblyman Dan Quart worked very hard to get this done. Thanks also to everyone who called and emailed Leader Flanagan. That was a huge help to Todd Rathner, Knife Rights Director of Legislative Affairs, who spent this week in Albany lobbying to get the vote done before the deadline. Finally a shout out to our good friends at the the Legal Aid Society and the NRA, whose lobbyists also worked very hard on this effort.

The bill previously passed in the Assembly by a vote of 128-1. The bill is now ready to be transmitted to Governor Cuomo. We will advise when the bill is transmitted, which may take some time. Only at that point will it be time to again call and email the Governor.

In response to the Governor’s objections to last year’s bill, this year’s bill removes “centrifugal force” from the definition of a gravity knife and adds “solely” to create a bright-line definition that even overzealous New York City law enforcement and prosecutors can understand, as desired by the Governor. It would preclude the unconstitutionally vague “wrist flick” test that has resulted in over 60,000 arrests and prosecutions in New York City which the Governor himself described as “absurd” in vetoing last year’s bill on New Year’s Eve.

Any true gravity knife, as the term is understood everywhere but in New York City, will still be prohibited by the “released from the handle or sheath thereof solely by the force of gravity” portion of the definition, but common folding knives could no longer be considered gravity knives.

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Not living in NYC, thankfully. But just a question: does a "true" gravity knife include one where you have to release the locking mechanism for the blade to drop, or does it just drop if the knife is positioned properly? I had a Sage 3 that would 100% drop into locked position without a flick of any kind if I held it vertically and retracted the lock, and I rather enjoyed that.

I'd imagine quite a few Benchmade Axis locks would do this as well, though my 940 never did.
 
Great job, Knife Rights. I'm looking forward to contacting the Governor about this issue when the time comes. :)
 
Bigbluefish said:
Not living in NYC, thankfully. But just a question: does a "true" gravity knife include one where you have to release the locking mechanism for the blade to drop, or does it just drop if the knife is positioned properly? I had a Sage 3 that would 100% drop into locked position without a flick of any kind if I held it vertically and retracted the lock, and I rather enjoyed that.

I'd imagine quite a few Benchmade Axis locks would do this as well, though my 940 never did.
Click to expand...
Yeah i wonder about thing using the AXIS lock and other similar variants that are basically free floating blades when unlocked. I would also assume that the Phoenix and Warlock by Paragon classify as such as really they are just folding gravity knives unlike the old original para trooper dropping gravity knives. The old gravity knives typically had some time of mechanism to "lock" or retain the knife inside the handle until released similar to a switchblade sans the spring assistance.
 
This is great news.
So your typical one-hand opener would be legal? Assisted openers?
And having a knife clipped to your pocket won't get you arrested?
 
Would flipper opening knives considered ex: ZT gravity knives under new law?
 
Living in NJ and traveling to NY a bit means that though this doesn't resonate as much with me as it does some others, it still does quite a bit.

Thanks for all you folks do for all of us.
 
Wolf7 said:
Would flipper opening knives considered ex: ZT gravity knives under new law?
Click to expand...
No, they're opening entirely from the force of your hand, assisted is okay from my understanding, push button spring opening is considered a switchblade and allowed when hunting or fishing with a license. Axis locks I believe would still fall under gravity knife, unless you sacrifice the fidget factor and tighten that pivot a tad so it doesn't free drop:). OTFs totally off the table. I didn't see anything about open carry in the op's post so I'm assuming that yes a visible pocket clip is considered open carry and illegal(get a slip pouch that has a clip and carry it the same way). I don't recall the rules on fixed blades but I believe they're relatively lax compared to folders. Balisongs are thankfully fair game as they don't auto lock on open:rolleyes:(ruled as such by two different judges).
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, only my interpretation that some may find useful
 
If you are a person living in the type of neighborhoods that NYCPD target, you probably have not heard of this law, the cops won't tell you, and the public defenders probably won't be much help. It pays to educate yourself so you can at least point the public defender in the right direction.
 
The bad folks don't care about laws. That's for lawyers after the crime has already been committed, IMHO>

The German Paratrooper Knife is what I consider to be a gravity knife. My Army Armor- Recon Platoon Captain son carried one of these when stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is very old school but is totally reliable, although somewhat noisy dropping the blade out.


The first folding knife that I saw, and loved, that dropped the blade with a button was the Gerber Paul knife around 1970. You could play with this all day long.


Here is the good replacement for a gravity knife. But I doubt it is legal in NYC.

 
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It is nice to see them trying to pass a common sense law. I believe that last time this bill was supported by both sides of the aisle. The arrests seemed to hurt hard working people and not the criminals that it was supposed to be targeting. I hope if this passes, it will cause the police officer to exercise his/her own judgment in a good way as opposed to just arresting someone and letting the courts decide (with the result of money and time coming out of the persons pocket)
 
I should have stated this in my first post: Kudos to Knife Rights. And a big thumbs-up to the New York State Senate :eek: for doing something so blatantly reasonable.
 
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