Shock and Claw in New BLADEĀ®

Shock-and-claw karambits
Shock and claw karambits help highlight the latest BLADEĀ®, on newsstands NOW!

“Shock and claw” karambits, the damascus knives that changed knife history and the complete lowdown on the 4th Annual BLADE University at the 36th Annual BLADE Show are but a few of the highlights of the latest BLADEĀ®, on newsstands NOW!

Boasting a blade shaped like a sickle, the karambit has been adapted for martial arts use today. However, it remains an effective cutting tool as well. James Morgan Ayres tests four of the latest editions in his story, “Shock & Claw.”

BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-FameĀ© member Bill Moran changed the face of the custom knife industry in many ways, but it’s his damascus knives that first brought him not only national fame but worldwide acclaim as well. Join Mike Haskew as he studies Moran’s initial damascus models in BLADE’s latest installment of its “Knives That Changed Knife History” in “A Thunderclap of Steel.”

As the world’s biggest and most important knife event, BLADE Show 2017 attracts the best knifemakers and knife pros in existence. What better talent pool is there to select from as teachers for BLADE University, three days of knifemaking and other cutlery classes on a wide variety of sharp subjects? Check out who will be teaching what and how you can attend in “Back To Sharp School” by this writer.

Also this issue: Pat Covert’s test of four of the latest factory flipper folders; Dexter Ewing’s assessment of some of the newest factory machetes; part two of Frank Trzaska’s salute to the knives used by U.S. soldiers during World War I on the 100th anniversary of the USA’s entry into “the Great War”;  the latest paring knives just in time for Mother’s Day, by Daniel Jackson; some of the top drawknives and how to use them, by Abe Elias; a farewell to ABS journeyman smith Larry “The Hammer” Harley; and much more in the latest BLADE—on newsstands now or subscribe here.

Pro-Knife Laws Need Your Help!

Three states are considering pro-knife laws that need your help, Knife Rights reports.

Pending measures in Kansas, Tennessee and Texas have been approved in lower legislative bodies and are moving on for further approval. If you act now, you still have time to help ensure these pro-knife laws will be enacted.

The one in Kansas (HB2033) would enact Knife Law Preemption and repeal the ban on switchblades, dirks, daggers and stilettos. Legislators helping the cause there include Rep. Jim Howell and Rep. Richard Carlson.

Tennessee’s progressive pro-knife law (Senate Bill SB1015) would also enact Knife Law Preemption, repeal the state’s antiquated switchblade ban and repeal the state’s 4-inch blade-length limitation. Sen. Mike Bell has been most helpful in the fight to save the knife rights of those in the great state of Tennessee.

Finally, the Texas law (HB1299) would enact Knife Law Preemption and repeal the state switchblade ban (HB1862). Rep. Harold V. Dutton, Jr., has led the fight in the Lone Star State.

Knife Law Preemption eliminates conflicting knife laws from county to county, city to city and town to town within a state, laws that act as “knife traps” to unjustly snare law-abiding knife users and build tax coffers in the applicable jurisdictions. Blade Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-FameĀ© member Bill Adams likes to call the practice “tax farming,” and the term applies in spades in this instance.

According to Knife Rights, Knife Law Preemption has been enacted in Arizona, Utah, New Hampshire and Georgia.

For more information on how you can help visit www.KnifeRights.org.

Three states' pro-knife laws need your help. www.shopblade.com/embassy-aluminum-w-black-g-10-inlay-black-blade-combinationedge-w8498?lid=ssfbbl032213
Three states are considering pro-knife laws that need your help. www.shopblade.com/embassy-aluminum-w-black-g-10-inlay-black-blade-combinationedge-w8498?lid=ssfbbl032213

Ivory: Brady Deciphers Final Rule

Final Rule on ivory.
If you collect, make or otherwise deal in knives containing elephant or antique ivory, the final rule concerning the Special Rule on African Elephants is a must read for you.

In case you missed it, this past June 6 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published its final rule concerning the Special Rule on African Elephants. The final rule will go into effect on July 6—just a little over two weeks from now.

As stated in the USFWS press release accompanying the rule’s publication, the USFWS goal is a “near-total elephant ivory ban.”

The final rule is basically the same as what USFWS proposed last year, including banning the international commercial import of antique ivory; shifting the burden from the trade of antique ivory items to the seller to prove the items are over 100 years old, have not been repaired or restored with ivory after Dec. 27, 1973, and, for some items, were imported through an endangered species “antique port”; and making it illegal to trade ivory in interstate commerce if the ivory is less than 100 years old. There is a 200-gram “de minimis” exception to the rule for “Pre-Convention” ivory that is further narrowed by six other criteria. There are also some special provisions for musical instruments.

According to Sandra Brady of the Elephant Protection Association, to qualify for the “de minimis” amount the following criteria must be met:

1) You must be able to prove your ivory component was legally imported either before 1990 or after 1990 with a CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) certificate;

2) The ivory is a fixed or integral component or components of a larger manufactured or handcrafted item and is not in its current form the primary source of the value of the item, that is, the ivory does not account for more than 50 percent of the item’s value;

3) No raw ivory—period;

4) The manufactured or handcrafted item is not made wholly or primarily of ivory, that is, the ivory component or components do not account for more than 50 percent of the item by volume;

5) The total weight of the ivory component or components is less than 200 grams (7.054793 ounces), and;

6) The item was manufactured or handcrafted before the effective date of the rule (July 6, 2016).

“Ignoring the decline in both demand for ivory and poaching trends, the wildlife groups are also ignoring market laws like supply and demand, and past lessons taught by Prohibition [the USA’s failed ban on liquor from 1920-33],” Brady continued. “But to make matters worse for the elephant, they are ignoring the viability and long-term success of sustainable use, which has brought one species of rhino back from the edge of extinction, as well as the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep of North America.

“The fight is not over and this is but a small portion of a larger agenda, one that will make animal rights trump human rights and will further defray our rights as citizens of this great nation. Please keep passing on the truth, calling your representatives and supporting the Elephant Protection Association.”

In all, the final rule encompasses over 30 pages. For more visit Revisions to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) Special Rule for the African Elephant.

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Deadline Today for Knife Preemption Law for GA, BLADE Show

If you travel through Georgia to the BLADE Show (www.bladeshow.com), the Knife Law Preemption bill that will be voted on by the Georgia House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee TODAY needs your help! Richard Rogers won Best Folder at the 2011 BLADE Show for his three-blade sowbelly in rainbow mother-of-pearl.

 

The Georgia House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee hearing on SB432, a bill that would establish Knife Law Pre-emption in the state, will conclude today, Tuesday, March 20, Knife Rights reported.

    Knife Law Preemption would protect all law-abiding citizens who carry knives from the patchwork of inconsistent knife laws from jurisdiction to jurisdiction while traveling through the state, including those who will be traveling to the BLADE Show (www.bladeshow.com) June 8-10 at the Cobb Galleria Centre outside Atlanta.

    Once again, we need your help to get this bill passed. Your calls and emails made a big impact passing SB432 in the Georgia Senate. Now, please call or email and ask the members of the Committee to vote YES on SB432 when it is before them for consideration today.   

    If you are a Georgia resident it is best that you call ALL the committee members below. If you can’t call, at least email.     

  

    If you are a BLADE Show attendee from outside of Georgia, please email ALL of the committee members (listed below) and ask them to vote YES on SB432.  

    IMPORTANT: In your email or when you talk to each Representative’s secretary, tell them that that you are a BLADE Show attendee or exhibitor and that the BLADE Show represents MILLIONS of dollars to the Georgia economy. It also represents many hundreds of JOBS in Georgia. All those hotels and restaurants we stay at and eat in during BLADE Show employ many hundreds of people, and SB432 will help support the BLADE Show! You deserve to not have to worry about local knife restrictions when traveling to and attending the BLADE Show, and even a single unjustified and highly publicized arrest could adversely affect BLADE Show attendance!   

    Use Email SUBJECT: Please Vote Yes on SB432 

Ann Purcell – Chairman Dist 159 – [email protected] Phone: 404-656-5139

Willie Talton – Vice Chairman Dist 145 – [email protected] Phone: 404-656-5116

Bob Hanner – Dist 148 – [email protected]  Phone: 404-656-7859

Bill Maddox – Dist 127 – [email protected]  Phone: 404-656-3947

Jay Neal – Dist 1 – [email protected] Phone: 404-656-5138  

Billy Horne – Dist 71 – [email protected] Phone: 404-656-0287

Scott Holcomb – Dist 82 – [email protected] Phone: 404-656-6372  

Gloria Frazier  -Dist 123 – [email protected]  Phone: 404-656-0265

Kevin Cooke  -Dist 18 – [email protected] Phone: 404-656-0325  

Darlene Taylor – Dist 173 – [email protected] Phone: 404-656- 0177

Yasmin Neal  -Dist 75 – [email protected] Phone: 404-656-0265  

Doug Collins  -Dist 27 – [email protected] Phone: 404-656-7737

Tim Bearden  -Dist 68 – [email protected] Phone: 404-656-0287

    It is much, much better to email each member individually, but if you cannot, below are all the email addresses which you can copy and paste into your email:

[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] 

    CALL or EMAIL TODAY! 

    For more click on www.KnifeRights.org.

For more on the latest knives, knife legislation, knifemaking instruction, knife trends, knifemakers, what knives to buy and where and much more, subscribe to BLADE Magazine, the World’s No. 1 Knife Publication. For subscription information click on http://www.shopblade.com/product/blade-magazine-one-year-subscripti…?r+ssfb032012#BL1SU.

AKTI Launches Monthly Online Knife Auction to Raise Legislative Funds

What better deal?  Help AKTI raise legislative fund to fight restrictive knife laws as we continue our state by state efforts started in 2001 – and own a new knife!

Launching Today (Aug 1) is AKTI’s Monthly Knife Auction with proceeds directed to legislative efforts that can have costly expenses including lobbyist bills.  Each month will feature a different knife generously donated by our supporters.  All auctions will run for one complete month.

Thanks Buck Knives for the first knife – a Buck 119.  Check out the details.  Auction starts today!

Want to donate a knife? Email Jan Billeb, AKTI Executive Director – [email protected]

Lee’s Sword Is Returning to Appomattox

The sword Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee wore when he surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant is returning to a new museum about a mile of where the surrender occurred in Appomattox, Virginia, according to reports.

    Slated to be the centerpiece of the new museum outlining the post-Civil War struggle to heal the nation, Lee’s French-made ceremonial sword is leaving a Richmond museum where it had been for nearly a century.

    The sword is seen at Lee’s side in many paintings of the scene when he met with Grant to sign the document of surrender on April 9, 1865.

    According to reports, it is a myth that Lee offered the sword to Grant as part of the surrender and that Grant subsequently refused the traditional surrender gesture.

    The sword has been “conserved” after years of polishing had erased much of the golden luster from the brass. The nearly 3.5-foot sword now “sparkles,” from the lion-head pommel to the blade’s gilded-relief blade. The hilt is ivory.

    The sword was intended for ceremonial use and there is no evidence Lee used it in battle.

For more on the latest knives, knife legislation, knifemaking instruction, knife trends, knifemakers, what knives to buy and where and much more, subscribe to BLADE Magazine, the World’s No. 1 Knife Publication. For subscription information click on http://www.shopblade.com/product/blade-magazine-one-year-subscripti…?r+ssfb032612#BL1SU.

CA Appeals Court Throws Out Anti-Switchblade Ruling

According to Knife Rights, the California Court of Appeals last week reversed a lower court’s ruling that a knife that could be “wrist-flicked” open was a “switchblade.”

The lower court made the faulty ruling despite an explicit provision in California law that distinguishes and protects one-hand opening and assisted-opening knives with a bias towards closure and despite prior Appellate Court rulings upholding that exception. These common folding knives represent over 80 percent of the U.S. market and the California legislature clearly wanted them to be legal when they clarified the original switchblade law as follows:

“‘Switchblade knife’ does not include a knife that opens with one hand utilizing thumb pressure applied solely to the blade of the knife or a thumb stud attached to the blade, provided that the knife has a detent or other mechanism that provides resistance that must be overcome in opening the blade, or that biases the blade back toward its closed position.”

This is essentially the same exemption that was added to the Federal Switchblade Act as a result of the knife industry banning together to help clarify the federal definition in 2009.

“We laud the Appeals Court on its decision and a well-written opinion, but it is unfortunate that the defendant had to undergo the extreme harassment and stress to him and his family and friends that comes with such an experience due to the ignorance and apparent anti-knife bias of the law enforcement officer, prosecutors and the lower court involved,” Knife Rights indicated in a statement. “We’d also like to acknowledge the successful efforts of the defendant’s court appointed lawyer who presented a strong defense. Hopefully, this will be the end of this sordid travesty of justice by the state and there will be no further appeal.”

You can read the Appeals Court opinion here: www.kniferights.org/G045929.pdf

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