Beyong the Article
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This article originally appeared in the December 2009 edition of BLADE.

In case you missed it, in early August U.S. Customs and Border Protection decided to renege on its attempt to reclassify assisted openers and one-handers as switchblades under the Federal Switchblade Act.

A number of conclusions can be drawn from the Customs flip-flop, which was no doubt caused by the Senate’s passage of amendment 1447 to H.R. 2892 (Homeland Security Appropriations Bill) that would ostensibly exempt assisted openers and one-handers from being classified as switchblades (see page 89, November BLADE®). Among those conclusions:

• Arguably most important is that Customs’ decision resulted from what could one day be viewed as a watershed moment for knife enthusiasts everywhere. Never before has the entire knife industry—pro-knife advocacy groups, knife manufacturers and importers, the knife media and, most importantly, individual knife enthusiasts—come together as one and contacted their legislative officials en masse demanding that a potential anti-knife ruling be stopped, and appear to actually succeed in starting the ball rolling to have the ruling stopped, as witness the Senate’s passage of 1447. (Incidentally, to add to the “all-for-one-one-for-all” theme, the American Knife & Tool Institute’s (AKTI) lobbyist in Washington, D.C. reportedly has been working with the National Rifle Association to coordinate efforts on 1447 as well.)

• While potentially a watershed moment for the entire cutlery community, all the aforementioned gains will be but a historical footnote if the U.S. House does not accept the Senate’s amendment language and President Obama does not sign the amendment into law (a process that was still pending at press time).

• Customs changes its mind more often than I open and close my assisted opener (well, maybe not quite that much). As noted David Kowalski, AKTI communications coordinator, “Remember that Customs issued four very detailed ruling letters between 2005 and 2008 declaring that assisted openers were not switchblades, then changed their collective minds three months ago, endangering the entire sporting knife industry.” As with any federal agency, Customs’ policies are not only at the mercy of whichever administration is in power, those policies are also at the mercy of how often some administrations change their minds (see above under “my assisted opener”).

• Rather than making passage of 1447 by the House and signing it into law by the president less of a priority for the knife industry, Customs’ decision to back off its attempt to reclassify assisted openers and one-handers as switchblades makes passage of the amendment even more critical for all knife enthusiasts. Why? Because tomorrow Customs officials might, to borrow from Kowalski, “change their collective minds” yet again and renew their assisted/one-hander reclassification skullduggery. And it might be a lot more difficult to re-galvanize an entire industry to do something—unite to fight Customs’ reclassification proposal—it has already done once.

No, as the good folks at AKTI point out, the struggle to protect assisted openers and one-handers from the on-again-off-again mind changers at Customs is far from done. All knife enthusiasts should continue to remind their representatives in the U.S. House the fight is not over until the fat lady sings—and, at press time at least, she hadn’t even started warming her pipes up yet.

For breaking news on Customs’ “Switch Hunt” and other related updates, stay tuned to blademag.com. For more information on how you can help fight for your right to knife, contact the AKTI at 307.587.8296 (Jan Billeb, executive director) or 715.209.7389 (David Kowalski, communications coordinator) or www.akti.org, and/or KnifeRights.org at 866.889.6268 or www.kniferights.org.