Needing to understand

[tatt_bassist89]

I recently purchased a swing guard Italian stiletto I live in Texas and switchblades are legal. By law it states that double edge is illegal, but what about single edge pick lock blade? this would be my carry around knife.

 

[RevDevil]

If the edge opposite the cutting edge is sharpened, you are not legal.

 

[zzyzzogeton]

Don't what a pick lock blade is, but under TX law any thing single edged and under 5-1/2 inches is legal to carry, concealed or open. If it's single edged but 5-1/2 inches or longer, it is illegal to carrry in public.

The only knives illegal to carry based on "type" regardless of blade length are daggers, dirks, poniards and bowies. The first 3 are all double edged, so they are easy to identify, as far as LEOs are concerned.

The only nebulous thing is the bowie. What constitutes a bowie has never been defined. A clip point knife of any length with a sharpened swedge is considered by many to be a bowie. A butcher knife could be considered a bowie. Many consider a knife with a double guard is a bowie, although the original only had a half guard. I wish we could at least get the nebulous term bowie removed from the law. Maybe someday.

 

[tatt_bassist89]

Well from what i heard texas is looking to drop all knife restrictions here in the near future. In the laws iv found stilettos are in the list right befor daggers and dirk. So I didn't know if this ment all stilettos or just double blade ones

 

[zzyzzogeton]

Anything along new laws would be simply vague rumours. New legislation for the next session can't even start to be filed intil next week.

A stilletto is a specialized dagger, design for slipping through ring mail armor. Even a single-edged version might earn you a trip to jail, depending on your attitude, the LEO's, the circumstances, etc, especially considering a stilleto's intended use.

 

[John_0917]

Well from what i heard texas is looking to drop all knife restrictions here in the near future. In the laws iv found stilettos are in the list right befor daggers and dirk. So I didn't know if this ment all stilettos or just double blade ones

Not true, it would be nice but probably not going to happen, the bill to preempt local knife laws never got much action last session (mainly due to scheduling) and gun bills tend to vastly overshadow knife bills. Even if any new knife bills pass, the earliest they could realistically be in place would be late 2015.

 

[tatt_bassist89]

Well then that's the end of that rumor

 

[OhShoot]

Not true, it would be nice but probably not going to happen, the bill to preempt local knife laws never got much action last session (mainly due to scheduling) and gun bills tend to vastly overshadow knife bills. Even if any new knife bills pass, the earliest they could realistically be in place would be late 2015.

If KnifeRights is involved there, though, it could happen. Here two sessions ago we got state preemption, and last time around all knives legal at last.

- OS

 

[John_0917]

If KnifeRights is involved there, though, it could happen. Here two sessions ago we got state preemption, and last time around all knives legal at last.

- OS

That would be nice, there aren't many localities with their own restrictions, but a preemption would certainly be a welcome change. Getting rid of the blade length and double edge language would be nice as well, I really want a Benchmade Infidel, but I'm not going to spend $400 on a knife I can't carry.

Being realistic though, I don't have a lot of hope for any knife bills passing in the 2015 session, the open carry attention whores will likely hijack all of the energy on that front.

 

[Douva]

Don't be so pessimistic about the future of Texas knife laws. In 2013, Knife Rights got the Lone Star State's ban on switchblades lifted. The knife law preemption bill had a lot of momentum at first but ran into two snags:

1) The committee vote got held up for several weeks, partly because one of the bill's supporters was absent from the meeting at which they were supposed to vote the bill out of committee and partly because another committee member was a former San Antonio city councilman who didn't want to see San Antonio's stringent knife ordinances struck down.

2) The bill's author (a brash young Tea Party freshman) pissed off enough of his fellow Representatives that the Calendars Committee scheduled the bill as the last item on the House Calendar (in the history of the Texas Legislature, the House has probably never once reached the last item on its calendar before adjourning sine die).

Prefiling of bills for the 2015 Texas Legislative Session begins six weeks from today, and the session begins January 13, so we should see some action in the next few months.