Re: New State Legislation

[Eric Isaacson]

Hello All:
I need your help. After reading an article in "Blade" magazine about the Student in Minnesota(state I live) who was charged with a FELONY for taking a knife to school I started thinking about this state legislation. Here is what it states:
"Subd. 1d. Felony; possession on school property. (a)Whoever possesses, stores, or keeps a dangerous weapon or uses or brandishes a replica firearm or a BB gun on school property is guilty of a felony and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than two years or to payment of a fine of not more than $5,000, or both"

Definition for Dangerous weapon is as follows
"Subd. 6. Dangerous weapon. "Dangerous weapon" means any firearm, whether loaded or unloaded, or any device designed as a weapon and capable of producing death or great bodily harm, any combustible or flammable liquid or other device or instrumentality that, in the manner it is used or intended to be used, is calculated or likely to produce death or great bodily harm, or any fire that is used to produce death or great bodily harm"

Okay, Here is the question. Lets not get radical But what would be the "best" change for this legislation? Besides eliminating it, which would not pass. Is it to have a much clearer definition to "Dangerous Weapon" including blade lengths? Here is what makes me mad, I can legally walk the streets of Minnesota but if I walk into a school/on school property I can get charged with a felony.

I want your ideas and help on this with something that can feasibly pass the states legislature. So please lets keep that in mind. I want to talk to my state reps. with some actual changes.
Thanks
Eric

 

[ELarson]

Eric,

I did some looking at Washington States laws to make sure that my favorite carry was legal. WA defines a blade length of over 3" as a weapon. It's a vague area as that defines the difference between say assault and assault with a deadly weapon. But it doesn't really define max carry length.

Sounds like definition of a length for weapon would sure clear up the statute.



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E. Larson
Edmonds, WA

 

[Gollnick]

Remember that a felony conviction carries more than a stiff fine and long jail sentence: a convicted felon can not own firearms, vote, serve in the military, hold a job requiring a security clearance, work in law enforcement or many other civil jobs, be bonded (which is required for many jobs), will have troubles getting a job in general for the rest of his life.

To impose such a sentence on someone for bringing a small knife to a school is an example of "sentence inflation." This is a somewhat more civil example of what happens when somebody gets very, very mad at someone else, looses their temper, and hits the other person or even shoots them. It's interesting and disturbing that our society reacts to such incidents in such an analogous way.



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Chuck
Balisongs -- because it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!
http://www.4cs.net/~gollnick

 

[Eric Isaacson]

Yes, I agree with you both. I have some ideas what should be included in this legislation to make it more knife friendly. But what I really want are more suggestions, I need everybody's point of view here.
Eric

 

[Eric Isaacson]

Come on now I still need help on this. I guess I should have put "Mad Dog" in the title just to wake everybody up.
Eric

 

[cerulean]

There's a good discussion about these kinds of ambiguous knife laws going on at www.bladeforums.com/ubb/Forum30/HTML/000060.html Unfortunately, the AKTI forum doesn't get much traffic.