Archive for the 'Knife Blogging' Category

LA Times.

A conservative panel of federal judges ruled Monday that a 30-year ban on butterfly knives in Hawaii is unconstitutional under the U.S. Supreme Court’s new “history and tradition” standard for reviewing the legitimacy of gun and other weapons laws nationwide.

“Hawaii has not demonstrated that its ban on butterfly knives is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of regulating arms,” Judge Carlos Bea wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The ruling, which may be appealed, has implications beyond Hawaii, including in California and other states that also ban or severely restrict butterfly knives, which have been targeted by lawmakers because they can be easily concealed and flipped open.

California bans “switchblades” — which include butterfly knives — when they have blades 2 or more inches in length. A separate lawsuit challenging that ban is pending.

The decision reflects the growing reach of the Supreme Court’s pro-gun rights decision last year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn. vs. Bruen, in which the nation’s highest court ruled that restrictions on people’s 2nd Amendment right to bear arms are constitutional only if they are deeply rooted in the nation’s history and tradition or analogous to some historical rule.

Since then, trial and appellate judges have found themselves sifting through century-old state statutes to determine the legality of hundreds of modern weapons restrictions in states all across the country — including on knives and billy clubs, assault weapons and ammunition magazines, and on the possession of guns by certain classes of people, including adults under 21 and people who are subject to restraining orders.

Bea wrote that Hawaii’s 1993 ban on butterfly knives did not meet the criteria because nothing like it existed around the historical benchmarks chosen by the Supreme Court as relevant for such analyses: 1791, when the 2nd Amendment was passed, or 1868, when the 14th Amendment was passed. The latter amendment prohibits states from depriving people of property without due process of law.

Although the Bruen decision specifically addressed firearm regulations, Bea wrote that was only because the case in Bruen was about gun regulations in New York. The same “framework” applies to knives, which are also “arms” under the 2nd Amendment, he said.

[ … ]

Adam Winkler, a UCLA law professor who focuses on 2nd Amendment law, said the 9th Circuit’s decision “is emblematic of what’s happening across the nation right now.

“Courts are striking down regulation of arms left and right.”

Winkler said the Supreme Court “has put states in the impossible position of showing that any law that regulates weapons for public safety [has] clear analogues in the 1700s and 1800s,” which he added “just leaves courts to draw analogies to laws that were designed for a different society.”

“It really makes no sense,” he said.

[ … ]

Hawaii put forward several such laws, dating back to 1837, including laws that banned or regulated bigger blades such as Bowie knives and “Arkansas Toothpicks,” daggers, brass knuckles, canes concealing swords and knotted ropes with metal weights at the end called “slung-shots.”

An 1837 law in Georgia — which the court called Hawaii’s “best historical analogue” — said no one shall “keep, or have about or on their person or elsewhere … Bowie, or any other kind of knives.”

Bea wrote that the Georgia law didn’t clearly include “pocketknives” — which in his decision would include butterfly knives — so it wasn’t necessarily relevant. And anyway, he wrote, “one solitary statute is not enough to demonstrate a tradition of an arms regulation.”

[ … ]

“The court has to provide more clarity and direction for the lower courts,” Winkler said, “because the Bruen test has proven absolutely unworkable and unpredictable.”

It makes no sense to fisk this decision completely because it’s the right decision.  However, I do have some thoughts on it.

First, men should be able to carry swords if they choose to.  Silly debates on the mechanical operation of knives makes these judges look like school children, and besides, none of them ever used a knife anyway unless it’s an electric powered knife for cutting turkey because their wife told them to.  Their wives could probably have done a better job of cutting the turkey.

Seriously, most of these judges are so effete that they wouldn’t know how to use fire starter, tie a bowline or taut line hitch, build a campfire, or be able to open a box with a knife without cutting themselves.  They certainly wouldn’t know how to operate a 1911, and yet they’re adjudicating laws for the rest of us.

Next, notice the silly Adam Winkler and his hand wringing over this sort of thing.  He says, “impossible position of showing that any law that regulates weapons for public safety [has] clear analogues in the 1700s and 1800s,” [which he added] “just leaves courts to draw analogies to laws that were designed for a different society.  It really makes no sense.”

It makes perfect sense, and it’s clear enough to you and me.  Winkler just doesn’t like it.  He adds to our understanding of his frustration by emoting “the Bruen test has proven absolutely unworkable and unpredictable!”

The test is completely workable.  The test is to find analogues from the time of the signing of the constitution, or at the latest the lives of the founders (while they were still here on earth).  Can’t find an analogue?  Too bad.  You fail the test.  There is no reason to search any more.

There were no analogues on the carry of knives from the time of the founding.  Even as children the founders carried long guns to school with them to be able to hunt on the way to and from school to fill the dinner table.  And that stupid “analogue” on Bowie knives from 1837 from Georgia is no analogue at all.  It’s too late.

All this searching they’re doing is to try to force fit later laws and regulations into the framework of the Bruen test.  There was also no law or regulation of firearms serialization at the time of the founding either.  They can pull their hair out as far as I’m concerned.  In fact, the more time they waste on trying to convince the court that they’ve actually found something when the law is too late to meet the Bruen standard is time they don’t have to spend on wrecking the lives of other people.

The only downside for us is that this all slows the process down.  It would be better if they just gave up and understood that they can’t meet the Bruen test.  In absence of that, I’ll take a waste of their time.

Finally, why do writers go to silly men like Winkler to assess the facts of these cases, when they’ve got real scholars like David Kopel, Dave Hardy, Stephen Halbrook, Mark Smith and so many others?

Winkler doesn’t like the Bruen test.  That’s fine with me inasmuch as I don’t care what Winkler thinks.  That’s a much different thing than saying that it’s unworkable and unpredictable.  The test is entirely workable and quite predictable.  Winkler gets an ‘F’ from The Captain’s Journal on class participation today.

AllOutdoor.

This image is from the Montana Knife Company (so that we don’t get accused of poaching a picture from AllOutdoor).  They also have green and black and other color patterns.

It appeals to me.  I love good knives as well as well-made firearms.

Two comments.  They’re going to have to do a bit better than “Restocking Soon.”  Also, the price of $350 seems rather steep (although well-made knives go for a lot these days).  For that price, it had better function well and stand up to abuse.

Outdoor Life.

Strange as it may seem, the U.S. Marine Corps entered the jungle campaigns of World War II without a decent combat knife. Their first attempt was a double-edge dagger based on the British Commando knife, but it quickly proved to be a very poor utility blade for infantry combat. Going back to the drawing board and working with Union and Camillus cutlery companies, they came up with an all-purpose sheath knife, the USMC Knife/Fighting-Utility Model 1219C2. Camillus is said to have made the first deliveries to the Marines on January 27, 1943. Maybe “Knife/Fighting-Utility 1219C2” was just too big of a mouthful, and Camillus just didn’t have much of a ring to it. In any case, Leathernecks quickly unofficially labeled all knives of this pattern “kabars” after the trademark stamp of Union cutlery.

The rest of the article is very informative.  I have two.

I happen to like a partially serrated edge for mine, finding it has more utility in the bush and elsewhere.  If you don’t, you can get them without the serrations.

For those who are shaving grams in the bush, a large utility/fighting knife may be too much weight.  For me the perfect compromise is also a Ka-Bar.

It’s called “The Mule.”  It’s a folder with serrated edge, and it’s the heftiest, beefiest folder I’ve ever owned.  It can be used for virtually anything, up to and including chopping at wood in case I needed it for shelter, but at a reduced weight compared to the large fighting knife.

The sheath is kydex with cordura on the outside, but was very hard to find.  I didn’t like the leather sheath sent with the fighting knife.  The sheath for the folder is very nice, comes with the knife, and has straps that can hang on molle or pack straps.

The Sun:

Home Secretary Amber Rudd will today propose to make possessing them illegal everywhere, whether in public or at home.

A long list of dangerous weapons that glamorise violence will also be included in the total ban, putting them on the same legal footing as unlicensed firearms.

They include sword sticks, butterfly knives and blowpipes, as well as a range of martial arts weapons such as deathstars and handclaws.

Only people having the weapons for bonified ceremonial or religious reasons will be exempt from the ban.

Ms Rudd is also looking at making it compulsory to buy all knives in person rather than ordering for delivery to keep them out of children’s hands.

A new offence could be created of delivering them to private property.

Writing for The Sun today, Ms Rudd dubbed knife crime “a scourge on our society”.

[ … ]

Last year, selling zombie knives and possessing them in public was made illegal.

But the police are still powerless to confiscate or arrest suspects who keep the large blades with serrated edges at home.

The proposals come after police called for more powers to tackle spiralling incidences on knife crime, despite earlier crackdowns such as longer jail terms.

More than 32,000 knife offences took place last year in Britain – a 14% increase from 2015.

A scourge on the society, or a recognition of God-given rights for self defense.  But citizens there are subjects of the queen, and have no rights.  So the government is preparing, planning for, and even as we speak, actively engaging in the destruction of the culture and society with immigration and removal of means of self defense, even at home.

Remember my British readers.  Jesus quite literally was commanding His disciples to become criminals when He ordered them to obtain swords.  Such things were illegal in Roman-occupied Israel at the time.

Do the same.  Jesus says so.

USA Today: The TSA is set to allow “knives” on board airplanes.

Then the “knives” are worthless and there is no need to carry one anyway.

I have had my eyes on a knife at the MCX (Marine Corps Exchange) at Camp Lejeune for a while, and Sunday it was purchased for me.

This is considered by Ka-Bar to be a utility knife (at least, it is included under the rubric “utility” on their web site).  But I must admit that in a long history of ownership of knives I have never held such a solid, hefty knife with such close machining precision in the action.  It has a stainless steel blade with a partially serrated edge, and it is extremely sharp.  Its folder is heavy enough that it has the feel of something special – something different than the simple camping and hiking knife.  It has a no-slip grip.

The sheath shows that Ka-Bar knows that this is more than a utility knife.  It holds the knife tight and has a belt loop or two loops for molle strap attachment to a tactical vest, vertical or horizontal orientation with Velcro and snap closure.  This would be a good gift for a Soldier or Marine deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Ka-Bar has their own description.  They call it the Mule Folder, Serrated Edge.  I’m not saying anything about the price at the MCX compared to commercial price.