Vague laws offend several important values. It is a basic principle of due process that an enactment is void for vagueness if its prohibitions are not clearly defined. 104 (1972) is a case where these principles are succinctly described: Supreme Court opinion in Grayned v City of Rockford, 408 U.S. This requires adherence to established principles and that all individuals be treated fairly and without discrimination. Constitution requires due process in the formulation and application of laws. Would the “hidden inside its handle” element eliminate automatic knives with folding blades? Does the use of the word “fly” limit it to “ballistic knives”?Īnother English language dictionary defines the term “switchblade” as “a knife with a blade hidden inside its handle that springs out when a button is pressed.” While the blade of out-the-front knives is often hidden inside the handle when closed, the blades of pivoting or folding knives are almost always discernible when closed. The adopted definition for “dirk” is “a long, straight-bladed dagger or a short sword.” An online search reveals an inconsistent alternative definition of “a short dagger of a kind formerly carried by Scottish Highlanders.” Which is it? Long or short? The adopted “Webster’s” definition of “switchblade” is “a pocketknife having the blade spring-operated so that pressure on a release catch causes it to fly open.” Axe heads occasionally “fly off the handle.” With the rare exception of “ballistic knives,” knife blades do not “fly” unless thrown by the user. The dictionary definitions adopted by the court were an improvement over the extremely indefinite – sharp edge(s) and a point – standard mentioned in Richards v. Commonwealth 673 S.E.2d 469 (2009) turned to “Webster’s Third New International Dictionary” for relief from the longstanding uncertainty problem during which some Virginia courts defined “dirk” as any knife with two sharp edges and a point, while a “bowie” was a knife with one sharp edge and a point per Richards v. That same year, the Virginia Supreme Court in Thompson v. Since that date, our Supreme Court and this Court have considered the applicability of §18.2–308(A) to various types of knives on no fewer than ten separate occasions, and the only consistency in the conclusions reached has been inconsistency. the Court concluded that a pocketknife was “neither a dirk, bowie knife … nor a weapon of like kind.” . In 1998 our Supreme Court was first called upon to determine which bladed weapons fell within the scope of the statute. Commonwealth 686 S.E.2d 525 – involving what was said to be a scuba diving knife – a Virginia Court of Appeals judge wrote about the difficulties with the statute, which by then was 160 years old:Īpparently, at that time, a mere thirteen years after the death of the designer of one of the knives in question, Colonel James Bowie, Virginians did not have much trouble differentiating this weapon, or weapons like it, from more utilitarian knives such as hunting knives.īy the end of the twentieth century, however, that recognition had apparently faded. razor, or (v) any weapon of like kind as those enumerated in this subsection, he is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.Ī few more recent items, such as automatic and ballistic knives, have been added, and the “habitually” qualifier has been removed. (ii) any dirk, bowie knife, switchblade knife, ballistic knife, machete. If any person carries about his person, hidden from common observation. The current version, 18.2-308, now provides in pertinent part: A few minor changes have been made in the years since. The Virginia legislature passed a law in 1849 that made it unlawful to “habitually carry about hid from common observation any pistol, dirk, bowie knife or weapon of like kind.” The use of the adverb “habitually” is consistent with the concealed carry anti-dueling measures of that era. All Rights Reserved.This article appeared in Knife Magazine in October 2020 Know Your Knife Laws – A Gravity Knife by Any Other Nameīy Daniel C. The NYPD commissioner says it's still illegal to have a gravity knife in the subway. There were 885 gravity knife arrests arraigned by Legal Aid in the first six months of 2018 and 88% of people arrested for gravity knife possession are people of color. It says New Yorkers of color are targeted. The Legal Aid Society issued a report on caseload data for gravity knife arrests and prosecutions between January and June of 2018. In March, a federal court ruling found the previous ban to be unconstitutional, reasoning that the existing law could result in "discriminatory enforcement" and was vague. Andrew Cuomo vetoed similar bills twice, but this time, he signed, saying "the legal landscape has changed." This was the third time the Legislature sought to remove criminal sanctions associated with possessing the knives.įLASHBACK: Assemblyman Launches New Push To Reform Gravity Knife Law
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