Us knife laws

I can vouch for this site as an excellent resource (I independently verified many of the state pages). Only trouble I found is that some states very recently (as in, the last 6 months) revised their knife laws and the site has not updated to reflect this.
 
A word of caution to those using this information.

While knowing state law is always a good thing, many counties, cities, towns, and other municipalities have additional restrictions, thereby making it very difficult to wade through the myriad of laws and ordinances if one travels through many jurisdictions.

An example of this is my state, Washington.
State law does not restrict blade length, but several municipalities do.
Seattle defines a "Dangerous Knife" as any knife with fixed blade and any folding knife with a blade exceeding 3.5".
Federal Way restricts carry to blades less than 3".
Ephrata sets the prohibited blade length at 4" or longer.

Sadly, there is no State pre-emption with knife laws as there is with firearm laws here.

FWIW
 
That's a very handy website. I live in Mass and the laws are terribly confusing, that site clears everything right up. Thank you for posting!
 
SaguaroKid said:
Hope this is not a repeat. I found it very interesting.

http://www.knifeup.com/knife-laws/
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Thank you for the link.

I would just like to point out that the link for Minnesota knife laws is somewhat misleading. It makes a number of claims that (while they may be true for suburban and rural areas) do not apply to Minneapolis or St. Paul. I recently researched this thoroughly, and the only knives permissible for carry in Minneapolis are folders with a blade under four inches in length. St. Paul more specifically stipulates that not only are carriers limited to folders with blades under four inches in length, but they may not be spring assisted. That means no automatics, no fixed blades, no butterfly knives of any length. I had no idea the knife laws were so restrictive, and wanted to make sure that anyone reading this link did not interpret it to apply to Minneapolis or St. Paul.

http://www.knifeup.com/minnesota-knife-laws/
 
Klein Helmer said:
Thank you for the link.

I would just like to point out that the link for Minnesota knife laws is somewhat misleading. It makes a number of claims that (while they may be true for suburban and rural areas) do not apply to Minneapolis or St. Paul. I recently researched this thoroughly, and the only knives permissible for carry in Minneapolis are folders with a blade under four inches in length. St. Paul more specifically stipulates that not only are carriers limited to folders with blades under four inches in length, but they may not be spring assisted. That means no automatics, no fixed blades, no butterfly knives of any length. I had no idea the knife laws were so restrictive, and wanted to make sure that anyone reading this link did not interpret it to apply to Minneapolis or St. Paul.

http://www.knifeup.com/minnesota-knife-laws/
Click to expand...

If someone made that mistake, they really need an education on how laws work in the US. It's Top-down: Federal>State>County>City. Smaller tiers can't pass laws permitting things that the higher tiers ban, but if the higher tier doesn't ban something, lower tiers still can if they want to (unless the higher tier passes preemption laws which prevent this).
 
glistam said:
If someone made that mistake, they really need an education on how laws work in the US. It's Top-down: Federal>State>County>City. Smaller tiers can't pass laws permitting things that the higher tiers ban, but if the higher tier doesn't ban something, lower tiers still can if they want to (unless the higher tier passes preemption laws which prevent this).
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I don't think so. I am well aware of how laws work in the US, and I was unaware that knife laws in Minnesota varied from city to city. Before learning that this was the case, I had recently obtained a pistol carry permit and familiarized myself the governing laws in Minnesota and elsewhere. I mistakenly assumed that knife laws would work similarly - an assumption I could easily see being made by others. If that is not the case, apologies for the wasted post space; if that is the case, I am glad to have given a heads up.
 
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