More New York State Shipping Issues

I can somewhat understand the thought process that goes into these restrictive policies, but am very troubled that the actions of a corrupt local DA in a locality over 300 miles away, is being used to justify such a sweeping restriction on sales to the entire state. The wording of NY state's knife laws reads very much like that of many other states. I didn't vote for this jackass, and NYC is for all intent and purposes a state of its own. When, not if, this issue gets resolved, I may never again do business with any of the parties that adopted a shipping ban on the whole state, even if I do move elsewhere.
 
HeavyHanded said:
I can somewhat understand the thought process that goes into these restrictive policies, but am very troubled that the actions of a corrupt local DA in a locality over 300 miles away, is being used to justify such a sweeping restriction on sales to the entire state. The wording of NY state's knife laws reads very much like that of many other states. I didn't vote for this jackass, and NYC is for all intent and purposes a state of its own. When, not if, this issue gets resolved, I may never again do business with any of the parties that adopted a shipping ban on the whole state, even if I do move elsewhere.
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All this reminds me of another ban in NY. Remember the assault weapons ban? In particular high cap mags. In NY it is illegal to possess any mags made after Sept '92(?, around the same time the federal ban went into effect) unless you are a cop.

When the federal ban was still in effect, it was perfectly legal to send preban mags to NY, just like most other states. But many vendors would not send ANY high cap mags to NY. When the federal ban went into sunset, ALMOST NOBODY would send preban mags to NY. Now try to get high cap mags shipped to NY, almost impossible.

I fear the same might become of many knives if someting doesn't change real soon.
 
Critter said:
The issue is that it takes a good deal of money to go to court. Knife Rights is working on this, BUT it takes a LOT OF MONEY to go to court. Nobody can go to court who doesn't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend. If everyone on this forum gave us just $10, then we'd be in good financial shape. Unfortunately, that isn't going to happen, because a lot of folks would rather complain than donate or just figure that someone else is going to do it so they don't have to. Well, you (meaning all who read this) are "someone else" to everyone on this forum. So PLEASE, send us as much as you can because there's nobody else but Knife Rights willing to take on this fight. If we don't fight, we all lose. Is that what you want? www.KnifeRights.org
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:thumbup:donation sent....again
 
This is off of "assistedknife.com"

The Chief Assistant District Attorney in charge of supervising this case is Daniel R. Alonso. His email is: alonsod@dany.nyc.gov.

Assistant District Attorneys involved in the investigation:
Dan M. Rather - ratherd@dany.nyc.gov
Hilary Rosenburg - rosenburgh@dany.nyc.gov
Mike Kitsis - kitsism@dany.nyc.gov

District Attorney of New York County (Manhattan) - Cyrus R. Vance Jr. - vancec@dany.nyc.gov

The main office phone number is: 212-335-9000.

Mailing Address is:

New York County District Attorney’s Office
One Hogan Place
New York, NY 10013
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Put out some letters and yes, I'm now a donor to Knife Rights.
 
The city ban affecting shipping to the state makes sense.
It is possible that shipping someplace in upstate NY would require going through NYC. A Fedex plane landing at JFK airport for instance. It's a longshot that your single knife shipment is found out in transit; but I don't blame sellers not wanting to get caught up in that crap.
 
HeavyHanded said:
I can somewhat understand the thought process that goes into these restrictive policies, but am very troubled that the actions of a corrupt local DA in a locality over 300 miles away, is being used to justify such a sweeping restriction on sales to the entire state. The wording of NY state's knife laws reads very much like that of many other states. I didn't vote for this jackass, and NYC is for all intent and purposes a state of its own. When, not if, this issue gets resolved, I may never again do business with any of the parties that adopted a shipping ban on the whole state, even if I do move elsewhere.
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Why? The companies aren't at fault - they understandably want to avoid being extorted by the NYC thug and want to be able to continue to do business without the risk of some NYC jerk suing them out of existence. If you want to be mad at someone, how about being mad at the thug DA and the morons that voted for him?
 
I have written this in other posts, but here we go again. The law is the same as it was written in 1958, and for years it was never enforced to including locking knives that could be flicked open. NY had many upsate knife makers who would have protested loudly if the law was enforced that way. In the late 60s to early 70s, NYPD started to arrest persons who were involved in robberies and all attacks with a knife and charge them with a gravity knife if the knife could be flicked open. These suspects were mostly defended by public defenders who knew the knife was used as a weapon ( therefore a dangerous knife and the same CPW 4 charge as a gravity knife), so they normally did not contest the definition of a gravity knife.
As time went by and the NYPD went through changes that demanded certain number of arrests were needed to reduce crime, the NYPD began making arrests for the sole charge of gravity knife possession. This has gone on for years, and many other wise honest persons have been charged with CPW 4 for having a knife that could be flicked open ( sometimes even by holding the blade and flicking the handles as in a "spydie drop"). These knives were and still are offered for sale all over NYS, and still in other parts of NYC ( Queens, Brooklyn). I had posted several times over the years that it would be nice to see a retailer or manufactuer take up the defense fight for this issue, but that never happened. The new DA, Vance, came into power and asked where all these illegal knives came from. Like or dislike him, that was a valid question for him to ask. Where they all sold under the counter in China town and in small bodedgas next to the nickel bags of pot? Well no, there were sold in big stores out in the open, since they were never really considered illegal by normal people and normal LEOs. To his credit, Vance decided that the city should not arrest normal people for possessing these knives when they allow them to be openly sold to the public ( which is a crime by the same NYS law). This is were Vance's action defy the logic of law, since he did not bring charges but rather said pay a fine before I charge you to many retailers. This is clearly not in line with any normal legal action. You can warn a person ( or company) they are in violation of a law; you can charge them for doing it, but there is no presedent for what he did.
What needs to be done is a true case that runs the full lenght of the NYS court system and ends with an applete court decision in our favor that will make case law on this, or the better ( but harder) end, would be a new wording to the law that goes through the legislator. This could be done and with the recent Second Amendment cases it is easier today that before. Please understand that to try and get the courts to now say thousands of persons over almost 40 years were incorrectly charged and fined/jailed because the wording was wrongly interpeted and upheld many times in court is a very hard fight to win with many spin off complications to it. One way or the other this must be changed or any company selling these knives anywhere in NYS could be subject to legal action.
I truly think a change in the wording of the law is the best route to take, and based on the recent Customs rewording that allows assisted openers and flickable knives in a good basis to start from even though it does not have any control over the NYS law.
 
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The odds of the NYC dominated state legislature changing any of the wording is absolutely zero. What needs to happen is Vance found to be abusing his position by offering these illegal "buy outs" and being run out of office (or as you pointed out, a case needs to go to the SSC or SCOTUS and resolve this issue for good). As far as charges leveled at past offenders, how many of them were actually charged with possession of a "gravity knife" versus being charged with possession of a deadly weapon due to other circumstances ( possession of contraband, possession during commission of another crime, if defendant considered it to be a weapon, any knife becomes a weapon regardless of mechanics or blade length), which would be an easier charge to stick. This whole thing is an incredibly cynical money grab by an incredibly corrupt NYC system right down to the judiciary.

GingivitisKahn said:
Why? The companies aren't at fault - they understandably want to avoid being extorted by the NYC thug and want to be able to continue to do business without the risk of some NYC jerk suing them out of existence. If you want to be mad at someone, how about being mad at the thug DA and the morons that voted for him?
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Believe me, I'm plenty pissed at the downstate morons that acquiesce to and encourage this sort of crap. I'm also plenty pissed off with the judge for not throwing this crap right out of the courts. At the tail end of things, I'm disappointed with folks enacting a state-wide ban for an issue that's confined to NYC. Imagine some DA pulling this in Corpus Christi and sellers deciding not to sell anywhere in Texas. But when it comes to NY...So once again the whole state gets lumped with the lunacy that is NYC politics. As I stated, I can see their POV, but feel it is overly reactive. The likelihood of a DA's office anywhere else in the state picking this up is non-existent.

These companies have their policy, I have mine. If I don't care to do business with them going forward that's a personal decision and one that they'll not notice anyway.

HH
 
The sad news in there are thousands of arrest in NYC where the sole charge is CPW4 for the simple possession of a gravity knife. Remember this is the STATE law they are enfocing, so wheter or not there are many arrests made elsewhere, this has allowed for valid arrests to be made. I have two former co workers that transferred to the NYS police, and they have made it clear this is the law as they have been trained in the entire state. They readily add it is not enforced often, but they have been trained to enforce it in the same manner.

Watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oe-C-9MYVc
 
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Equally sad is that many people and apparently their lawyers do not know what the legal definition is of a gravity knife in NY.
"Gravity knife" means any knife which has a blade which is released
from the handle or sheath thereof by the force of gravity or the
application of centrifugal force which, when released, is locked in
place by means of a button, spring, lever or other device.
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The mere fact that it can be opened with one hand and it locks, does not qualify it. Conceivably, virtually every knife that NYC describes as a gravity knife could be made legal simply by tightening the pivot screw. Holding it by the blade and snapping it open would not qualify it either. So to NYC's other miscarriages of justice we can now add the utter incompetence of the public defender's office when dealing with these cases, and their influence over the State Police.

HH
 
Most knives can be peened tight ( if pinned together) or have the screw tightened and lock tited. I would agree that holding the blade should not count, but there are a few judges that see the holding of the blade and flicking the handle to be within the defintion of the law. One judge actually said he did not agree with it in theory, but the wording of the law allows for it.
I have always hoped the word "centrifugal" could be tested as to its use. It would be a very losse blade that would open with out the ending short stop that forces the blade out of the handle, and to me this is intertia.
 
And there goes another one. The wording of the law does not allow it. If the law was written "has a blade which is opened ( as opposed to "released
from the handle or sheath thereof") by the force of gravity or the
application of centrifugal force which..."

By including the words "from the handle" it can only be concluded that one must be holding the handle and releasing it from same. I'd love to be able to search for how many times outside of NYC anyone's been busted for a folder that was snapped open by holding the blade.
 
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