Sorry to hijack the NY information with this Canuck digression, but it's necessary.
Any folders that you can flip open and lock with your wrist motion is illegal in canada - the twist is there's not limit of how many times it needs to take to flip it to get it open:
A LEO can flip the knife as many times as he or she wants to, he or she can arrest and charged you for having prohibited weapon even it may took him or her 100 flip before the knife is open and lock.
No. This is completely incorrect.
In Canada, to convict on a criminal offence, the Crown must establish "mens rea," which in simple terms means intent. The mens rea element of a possession offence includes knowledge of the nature of the thing possessed. This means you could not be convicted unless the Crown established that
you knew the knife would open by centrifugal force. If it takes 100 attempts, or even a dozen attempts, to open the knife by centrifugal force, then the accused can easily and credibly reply that he was unaware it could be opened in that way. No mens rea, no conviction.
Before anyone takes that to mean that they can simply plead ignorance to any charge, the judge is not obliged to believe your fishy story. If the knife flicks open easily, you're done.
Up here in Canada it's a bit risky going anywhere with anything because all carry has to be justifiable to an officer based on the activity you're participating in.
This is also untrue. In fact, the burden is on the Crown to establish your dangerous purpose. You are not required to justify anything.
That dangerous purpose can be inferred if you're carrying something that has no reasonable relation to a non-violent purpose in the circumstances -- such as, for example, carrying a 6-inch fixed blade in downtown Calgary on a Saturday night. But you can't be charged just because you couldn't prove you had a reason to carry a pocketknife.
Sad day for our Nothern Neighbors.
No need to feel sad for us. The law here is in fact quite lenient when it comes to knives carried for non-violent purposes.
In practice, this kind of stuff is rarely an issue unless you come to the cops' attention for some other reason. The police have no general right to stop and search you and, in fact, they generally can't even require you to identify yourself unless they have reasonable grounds to believe your involvement in a specific offence.
It would be helpful if people read some case law before deciding to tell people what the law is in Canada.
Driving thru Canada to Alaska in an RV next month. Now I'm thinking I'll just disassemble my few blades that might be risky and lock them in my fireproof travel box.
Simply tighten the pivots so they can't be opened by centrifugal force, and don't bring any switchblades or butterfly knives.
I routinely buy knives in the States and bring them back across the border. The conversation goes like this:
CBSA: "Buy anything down there?"
Me: "A couple pocketknives."
CBSA: "None of them's a switchblade, are they?"
Me: "Nope."
CBSA: "Okay. Have a good one."
That's Canada: the big, bad police state.
