BLADE Magazine

From Knife Rights:

Knife Rights today filed a federal civil rights lawsuit to stop New York City from arresting law-abiding citizens carrying common pocket knives.

The lawsuit challenges New York State law on “gravity knives” and “switchblades,” and New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance’s attempt to mischaracterize the most widely-owned pocket knives in America as contraband. The case seeks a judicial determination that the law is unconstitutionally vague as applied to these ordinary pocket knives.

“District Attorney Vance is trying to advance his political career by exploiting a vague state law to demonize common pocket knives,” said Knife Rights Chairman Doug Ritter. “In the process, hundreds of law abiding knife owners are being arrested and Vance has extracted nearly $2 million from retailers to avoid prosecution on bogus charges. This lawsuit intends to put a stop to Vance’s abusive and unconscionable civil rights violations.”

“One-hand opening pocket knives are legal tools, used and carried every day by millions of law-abiding citizens for work, recreation and self-defense,” said Ritter. “Shame on D.A. Vance for demonizing common tools and turning honest citizens into criminals for purely political ends.”

If you are a retailer or individual who has been targeted for the sale or possession of so-called illegal knives (one-hand opening and assisted opening knives inappropriately claimed to be gravity knives or switchblades), we urge you to immediately contact Knife Rights at: email [email protected] or call toll-free: 1-866-889-6268.

Joining Knife Rights as plaintiffs are two private citizens, John Copeland, an internationally acclaimed artist, and Pedro Perez, an artist and fine art dealer, both New York City residents. The defendants are New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., the New York State Attorney General, and the City of New York. Knife Rights is represented by attorney David Jensen. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Click here to download the Federal Complaint as filed.

Knife Rights is supported in this lawsuit by the Knife Rights Foundation Sharper Future Legal Fund™ whose major donors include at Platinum level: Benchmade Knife Co., Blue Ridge Knives, Buck Knives, Columbia River Knife & Tool, Taylor Brands and United Cutlery; Silver level: KnifeWorks.com and Wenger NA; Titanium level: Smokey Mountain Knife Works; Bronze level: Ethan Becker and KA-BAR Knives. Please support those who support your knife rights.

From AKTI:

June 9, 2011: New Hampshire Governor John Lynch has signed into law the Knife Rights backed Knife Law Preemption Bill, HB 544.  New Hampshire becomes the third state in the nation to enact Knife Law Preemption.

Congratulations to NH Rep. Jenn Coffey who sponsored this bill and who worked tirelessly with her colleagues, local advocates and our lobbyist to ensure the bill passed unanimously in both houses of the New Hampshire legislature. Rep. Coffey’s efforts enacted a strong preemption law which will protect knife owners from senseless local ordinances well into the future.

Rep. Coffey won Knife Rights’ Freedom’s Edge award last year for her successful effort to repeal New Hampshire’s prohibitions on switchblades, dirks, daggers and stilettos. 

Knife Rights’ National Knife Law Preemption Campaign started successfully last year in Arizona. Earlier this year Utah enacted knife law preemption. Preemption prevents the creation of, or eliminates, a patchwork of ordinances and rules which serve to confuse or entrap those traveling within or through the state. A person traveling in a state without preemption laws could be charged with a violation of local law when they have no intention of violating the law. Preemption ensures citizens only have to know and abide by state law.

Preemption allows Knife Rights to focus its legislative efforts at the state level where it can more easily succeed in improving the legal environment for knife owners or opposing efforts to impose further restrictions on knives.

Fresh off her landmark victory in having the governor sign New Hampshire’s Knife Law Pre-emption bill today, Rep. Jenn Coffey (pictured with her favorite Kershaw knife in her full-time job as an EMT) will tell BLADE Show attendees all about it and other pro-knife legislative initiatives in her special seminar this Saturday, June 11, during the 30th Annual BLADE Show in Atlanta.

Titled “Got Liberty? How To Repeal Anti-Knife Laws,” Rep. Coffey’s seminar will be at 2:15 p.m. in Room 108 of the Cobb Galleria Centre. As the title suggests, the seminar is tailored to tell attendees how to repeal anti-knife laws in their home states.

The world’s largest and most important knife show, the BLADE Show will be June 10-12.

Those of us at BLADE and F+W Media appeal to your generosity and encourage you to join us to help support the Red Cross. This spring we donated 50% of all single-day profits for relief in Japan and your response was humbling. We thank you.
 
Today we are asking for your support to help us make another donation to the Red Cross, specifically toward the devastating flooding in the Mississippi Delta. Or however our partners at the Red Cross deem best to utilize our joint donation.
 
Today only we will donate 50% of all profits from all purchases, all products and services available via Blade Shop on www.blademag.com (and any of F+W Media’s other 19 U.S. eCommerce stores) to the Red Cross.

If you are able and choose to make a purchase today, know that you are supporting our fellow citizens in need. And if you were directly affected by the flooding, any one of the recent severe weather events, please accept our best wishes.
 

If you’re driving south to Atlanta for BLADE Show on I-24, here’s a heads up from the folks in Tennessee. You can read the full release here.

More than 80,000 Expected in Manchester Area for Ninth Annual Music and Arts Festival

NASHVILLE – For nine years, Middle Tennessee has played host to one of the premiere live music events in the country – the annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival.  The popular festival has people from all walks of life and from all corners of the country making the small city of Manchester in Coffee County their temporary home for several days each June.  As in years past, more than 80,000 music lovers are expected to attend this year’s festival, which kicks off Thursday night, June 10, and winds down Sunday night, June 13.

As Manchester prepares to welcome the multitude of visitors to their city, the Tennessee Department of Transportation and Tennessee Highway Patrol do some preparing of their own by gearing up for the extra traffic expected in the area resulting from Bonnaroo attendees. With 80,000 festival-goers converging at an old farm site in Coffee County, the area in and around Manchester always sees much heavier traffic throughout the festival.

• Efforts will be concentrated on keeping interstate traffic flowing.
• Exit 111 (SR 55) will be used as the main festival exit. Exits 97, 105, 112 (temporary exit on westbound side only), 117 and 127 are alternate exits if congestion occurs on the interstate.
• TDOT maintenance units will be posted throughout the festival region, and maintenance personnel will be on call all weekend.
• TDOT will provide variable message signs to warn drivers of delays.
• There will be no construction-related lane closures on I-24 near the Bonnaroo festival area between 3 p.m. June 9 and June 14.
• Median crossovers will be guarded to prevent motorists from parking in the crossovers and blocking emergency vehicles.
• Festival traffic will be kept in the right lane and/or on the shoulder of the interstate, allowing through traffic to utilize the left travel lane unimpeded.
• Emergency vehicles will use county roads that will be kept at low volume.
• Bonnaroo promoters issued early news releases to the trucking industry and other sources to alert the traveling public to festival times, location, and alternate routes.
• Temporary communication towers are in place to improve emergency communications.