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Knife vs. Gun Control?

Why are knife control laws so strong in the United States as opposed to gun control?

I was realizing it would be nice to have a knife with auto opening for boxes, etc., basically a switch blade or similar, and I found out that they are super illegal in my state (and/or there are length restrictions, or both sides of the blade can’t be sharp, etc), but I can go into a sporting goods store and buy a pistol and ammo in under 30min.

Shooting open an Amazon box seems inefficient. What is up with restrictive knife-control laws??

southsamurai ,
@southsamurai@sh.itjust.works avatar

My opinion is that it comes down to people not caring as much.

Yeah, that seems obvious, but bear with me here.

Know what the biggest difference there is between knives and guns? It ain’t how they do the job as weapons, though that is a big one. It’s that guns all work the same, so if you start banning one kind, it ends up applying to far more than anyone that thinks of firearms as an extension of the right to defense, a core human right, is willing to accept.

You ban switchblades, and there’s still fixed blades, slipjoints, lockbacks, etc. Nobody has ever tried to make the kind of laws you see around knives in other countries, but if there was an attempt, I don’t think there would be as much passion against it as there are with guns because there’s just not as much concern about knives as part of the right to defense because guns exist. Range > melee 90% of the time.

Firearms are the gold standard for personal weaponry. So out of the peeps that care about the enumerated right to keep and bear arms simply don’t think about knives as much. Same as they don’t think about bows, or swords or halberds. They don’t care because the fight isn’t as relevant to them.

And, on the other side of things, because guns are the gold standard, you don’t have as many people targeting knives. There’s less to fight against

Now, if guns disappeared, see how quickly crossbows and swords started being the target as people shifted to them instead of guns. That’s where the fight would go to. Ban those, and there’s going to be steps all the way down until the debate is about how big a rock you are allowed to have.

Also, because of that lack of give-a-shit, knife laws aren’t draconian everywhere. There’s some states where you can own and carry any knife you want. Others only ban knives that can shoot across the room, or other specific, niche types

Also, I think you’re underestimating how easy it is to get a pistol. If you go in without the work done ahead of time, you ain’t buying a pistol in half an hour. I don’t think even Texas is that loose. Background checks take at least that long. Maybe I’m behind the times om something, but even “shall issue” permit states, you have to count getting the permit in the time factor, imo.

WoahWoah OP ,

As I understand it, NICS checks take minutes now that everything is done electronically. The more comprehensive so-called “universal background checks” are only required in a minority of states.

30 minutes is probably on the longer end for the whole process. So, you may be behind the times a little bit on this one, but idk for sure, and obviously it varies from state to state.

I know my friend bought a hunting rifle in about 15min last year to go deer hunting for the first time, because I went with him out of morbid curiosity. I think if you’re over 21, a handgun purchase is identical.

The background check was so fast I didn’t even know they did one until I told him I thought they need to do a background check and he told me they did it while they were packaging his gun and ringing it up. I thought it was like in The Simpsons where it’s a few days, where Homer goes “aww, but I’m mad now!!” Lol

southsamurai ,
@southsamurai@sh.itjust.works avatar

Well dang! That’s kinda neat that the tech has gotten better.

I’m in a permit state, so I definitely fell behind on that, thanks for the info.

HubertManne ,

we have had a lot of laws against defense to like body armor or nonlethal weapons. its wierd. I remember watching a pbs round table with degerberg on it and he was talking about where are ll the murder corpses with shuriken wounds. H liked arnis because as he says there is no government in the world that can outlaw sticks.

jungle ,

Now in English please.

Noel_Skum ,

It is. Let me help you with your comprehension. The only real issues are that “all” and “he” are missing their vowels in two places and none of the names are capitalised. If that makes it illegible then that is on you. Sure, it helps if you already know (Fred) Degerberg and what PBS, Shuriken and Arnis means but we do have search engines.

Noel_Skum ,

He is not wrong about the stick.

cacheson ,

There is a "Knife Rights" organization that works to overturn these laws. From what I hear, they tend to be pretty successful, since there isn't a ton of attention on the issue and there isn't much in the way of entrenched opposition the way there is on the guns issue.

Fubarberry ,
@Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz avatar

There are actually some legal movements to reduce unnecessary knife laws, because a lot of them are based around the idea of 50s punks and don’t make actual logical sense.

But yeah, it depends entirely on the state. The only knife laws in my state is you can’t conceal carry a Bowie knife, but all other knives (OTF, automatics, balisongs, etc) are legal.

masquenox ,

Shooting open an Amazon box seems inefficient.

True, but it’s the American way.

FuglyDuck ,
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

If you look at the timing of most the laws against specific types of knives… you’re going to notice a pattern where there was some scare involving some minority or alt group.

Switch blades were outlaws after Hollywood depicted African American villains as gangsters with them.

Same with ballisongs and Asian gangsters/villians.

All of that said, auto-openers have a hair trigger and I would suggest instead getting a good flipper you can easily flick open. Benchmade bugout is my EDC (not for fighting, it’s light and solid.)

tiredofsametab ,

I moved to Japan where knives are also heavily restricted. If you live in Japan, you need a permit to purchase anything with a fixed blade over 15cm and it must be kept in the home. You can't legally carry a pocket knife with a blade longer than 6cm (I think 8cm if it's a folding but not fixed blade) and even then, if stopped, you need to have a specific reason for carrying it around.

It was really weird to me, as someone who carried a pocket knife basically everywhere. I did learn, though, that "in case I need to open boxes" is a case that has come up like twice in 10 years.

As for guns here, handguns are not allowed at all. There are licenses for airguns (pellet guns), rifles, and shotguns. Separately, there are licenses for trapping and hunting that do grant some permissions outside of what I wrote above (hunting/trapping license but no gun license means you're going to be killing your catch with knife, spear, strangulation, drowning, or electrocution).

WoahWoah OP ,

Interesting. I will say, I use my pocket knife usually at least once a day for one thing or another. They’re surprisingly useful for all sorts of tasks.

Phoonzang ,

The permit requirement does not apply to kitchen knives, does it? Been some time, but I travelled to Tokio quite frequently for work, and always made it a point to go to kappabashi and get a nice cooking knife, some of the longer than 20 cm.

tiredofsametab ,

There's a tourist exemption, but the knives have to be packaged and legally can't be opened.

tiefling ,

Butterfly knives only became legal in NY and MA about 4 years ago. There’s virtually zero reason to ban them other than protecting stupid people from accidentally cutting themselves

(I’m one of those stupid people)

WoahWoah OP ,

I got one of those things at a state fair when I was a little kid and set about immediately cutting myself trying to flip it open and look cool. My mom took it from me shortly thereafter. That ended the short saga of WoahWoah and the butterfly knife.

At this point, I can’t think of any reason I would want one. People that can use them well look pretty cool, but as a purposeful knife, they seem pointlessly complicated and prone to user error.

tiefling , (edited )

I use one as my daily! I practice with it a lot and have a trainer to practice. Funny enough, I actually just modeled mine today in a photoshoot (am a circus performer)

As a daily they function as any other knife. If you’re experienced with them, you don’t even think about open or closing. There’s a tiny bit of security in knowing that most people are too afraid to hold one. I do also like that they absolutely can’t close on you while holding it.

I have cut myself though. The worst was when I did a toss that landed tip-down on my palm. But small harm doesn’t bother me.

Professorozone ,

Yeah, but I’d love to have a switch blade. Seems really convenient to me.

hakunawazo ,

What a glorious ninja-career that could have been.

lordnikon ,

Same reason they banned pinball in Chicago and NY. To distract the people away from what names politicians money.

dubyakay ,

I had one of those in high school and took it with me to a school trip in my back pack. We were at camp (think log houses) for three nights and I started spinning the blade daily. Lots of cuts (mostly on my hands) later I’ve learned to flip it like a pro. I can still do it to this day if someone hands me one. It’s like biking or swimming. Once you learn it, you don’t forget.

The teacher that was with us never said anything besides watching my progress. He was the coolest dude ever. I miss you, Mr Jones.

RememberTheApollo_ ,

They were banned because racism. Not because of any particular danger to the user.

Brkdncr ,

Because knife control doesn’t have an entry on the constitution.

ThrowawayPermanente ,

Are knives not arms?

dQw4w9WgXcQ ,

Similarly to religion and the bible, words mean whatever people want them to mean.

Bytemeister ,

Right, wouldn’t a hand grenade or a suicide vest count as arms? But I get shit for exercising my 2nd. SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED!!

kureta ,

Because there is no National Knife Association to lobby for knife rights.

bestagon ,

Just get one anyway. It won’t do you any favors if a cop finds it but knife control isn’t a big priority for most law enforcement

EDIT: I am not a lawyer

YeetPics ,
@YeetPics@mander.xyz avatar

I feel you, I needed a bread knife to slice a loaf and there is a 4 day waiting period before I can go down to my FKL and pickup my turbo-bread-saw 9000.

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