Summary
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All assisted opening knives are excluded from prohibition by the 1958 Federal Switchblade Act. President Barack Obama signed an amendment to the Act late Wednesday, Oct. 28.

The amendment changes the Act this way:

Sections 1242 and 1243 of this title shall not apply to -
       (1) any common carrier or contract carrier, with respect to any
     switchblade knife shipped, transported, or delivered for shipment
     in interstate commerce in the ordinary course of business;
       (2) the manufacture, sale, transportation, distribution,
     possession, or introduction into interstate commerce, of
     switchblade knives pursuant to contract with the Armed Forces;
       (3) the Armed Forces or any member or employee thereof acting
     in the performance of his duty;
       (4) the possession, and transportation upon his person, of any
     switchblade knife with a blade three inches or less in length by
     any individual who has only one arm; or
       (5) a knife that contains a spring, detent, or other mechanism
       designed to create a bias toward closure of the blade and that
       requires exertion applied to the blade by hand, wrist, or arm to
       overcome the bias toward closure to assist in opening the knife.

The edgencia pushed for this amendment earlier this year following attempts by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (Customs) to overturn four court rulings pertaining to the legality of assisted openers. Customs backed off from this effort after the amendment passed the U.S. Senate.

"This no doubt will go down as the most important victory ever for Americans' right to own and carry knives," said Steve Shackleford, BLADE editor. "Everyone who participated--individual knife enthusiasts, knife manufacturers, knifemakers, lawmakers, AKTI, Knife Rights and others--all contributed. It is their victory and rightly so. Congratulations to them all."

The amendment protects the 35.6 million people in the United States who own knives that could have been affected by Customs, according to the American Knife & Tool Institute (AKTI). The knife industry as a whole employs 24,000 people and has a $6 billion impact on the economy, per statistics from Knife Rights.

Knife owners should check their state and local laws to ensure they are in compliance with any regulations regarding assisted openers.