Gov. Cuomo bans possession of "undetectable" knives in NYC

[Buka]

Are you aware of any legitimate need for them, or are they simply meant to sneak by security systems?

I am not aware of any need for them other than to bypass security measures.

 

[Flying Crane]

I am not aware of any need for them other than to bypass security measures.

Are there claims of better edge retention or ability to sharpen to a higher degree or anything like that? That might be useful in some industry? I guess they won’t rust so if they were made into scalpels, perhaps use in medical?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

both laws seem to be extremely sensible, repealing th gravity knife ban seem stupid step

there is a slight logic issue of how they detect undetectable knives in order to enforce it, as clearly mass monitoring using metal detectors to gain entry to a building don't work, which is presumably why they were banned you can only really enforce it after they have stabbed someone

I haven't read the bill to see how they define it, but at the courthouse we've stopped a number of what I'd assume they're talking about (knives meant to bypass detection, usually by not being metal). Shapes other than metal do show in the x-ray, and we've had folks try to sneak them in in hats (which we do a quick check on, so would likely spot). We also check belt buckles that are large enough to conceal a blade.

So, while the term "undetectable" is used to describe them, I assume they've put some language in that doesn't actually say the knife has to be literally undetectable.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

if they do frisk every one then you aren't going to try to smuggle a knife in

You would be surprised. At the courthouse, we have signs, uniformed security and deputies, x-ray machine and metal detector. On Friday, a woman tried to get in with a loaded gun AND drugs.

We capture or turn away something well in excess of 30 weapons a week (probably that many sometimes on the busiest day, Wednesday), and about 2 guns a month.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

When was the last time you got on an airplane? Scanning and frisking together are not typical. You get scanned, and if the detector goes off, then you get frisked. The vast majority of people only get scanned.

The scanners used in US airports will detect the "undetectable" knives (they'll often pick up paper in someone's pocket). Not a physical frisk in most cases, but it will pick up the item. The risk is if that item is in a carry-on bag, where it would be hard to detect with an x-ray.

 

[Buka]

While I can’t very well take myself seriously, I mean, who in their right mind would take me seriously? But I do take my duties at the airport where I work very seriously.

It’s to protect people, protect their family and loved ones. It is my mission in life, protecting people.

 

[geezer]

Well, one or the other.

I don't know a darned thing about how TSA decides what to do. A couple of weeks ago I went through security and got both screened and frisked ...and I don't think I set off any buzzers or beepers to trigger the frisk. Weirder yet, all the TSA people were so cheerful and helpful. The gal checking IDs was telling people who were fumbling to find their driver's licenses, , "No hurry, take your time, there's nobody behind you..." Even the guy who frisked me. He was all like "First, I have to ask you if you have any implants, blah blah... " And I'm like, "Heck no. Go for it! I'm not even ticklish". He laughed, gave me a cursory pat down and sent me on wishing me a good trip.

Usually those guys are really grumpy. Can't say I blame them.

Oh, and to get back on topic, I'm guess I'm lucky I wasn't flying out of NYC because they didn't detect a knife. Of course I don't think I was carrying a knife, but if they are undetectable, how would I know?

 

[Danny T]

LOL...they are going to be in shock when they see what I can do with a pencil or a credit card.
What about all those plastic picnic knives and forks?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

LOL...they are going to be in shock when they see what I can do with a pencil or a credit card.
What about all those plastic picnic knives and forks?

This is something we talk about in training (courthouse security, not dojo). We know we can't stop every potential weapon, so we focus on the most obvious, and on those that are most useful to most people. Sometimes, we have to take away stupid things because one of the judges decides it's important to them, but for the most part it's a matter of taking away actual blades and things obviously intended to be usable as weapons.

But, yeah, I'm much more likely to be able to do damage with the solid steel pen in my uniform pocket than the 1/2" wide blade on my keyring.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I don't know a darned thing about how TSA decides what to do. A couple of weeks ago I went through security and got both screened and frisked ...and I don't think I set off any buzzers or beepers to trigger the frisk. Weirder yet, all the TSA people were so cheerful and helpful. The gal checking IDs was telling people who were fumbling to find their driver's licenses, , "No hurry, take your time, there's nobody behind you..." Even the guy who frisked me. He was all like "First, I have to ask you if you have any implants, blah blah... " And I'm like, "Heck no. Go for it! I'm not even ticklish". He laughed, gave me a cursory pat down and sent me on wishing me a good trip.

Usually those guys are really grumpy. Can't say I blame them.

Oh, and to get back on topic, I'm guess I'm lucky I wasn't flying out of NYC because they didn't detect a knife. Of course I don't think I was carrying a knife, but if they are undetectable, how would I know?

For a while, every time i flew i was taken to the side and frisked, told it was a random security search. Never happened to any of my family though, and after about 10 times you start questioning if its random. When i went to italy last year, they called a few random people overhead to go to the security area (from the whole airport) for a random more intense search of belongings, and of course out of the thousands of people in the airport they called me (and like 5 others).

Moral of the story, if you want to smuggle something past an airport, don't hide it in my stuff.

 

[Deleted member 34973]

Last time I was at the airport, I got frisked because of a pen in my pocket. They told me that they needed to run it through the scanner. I told them to keep it.

Really, it was just a crappy pen.

 

[pdg]

I anyone advocating banning gravity knives? I had to look them up as I did know what they were. If I have my pants on I have a "gravity" knife clipped in my pocket. Just way too convenient not to considering my day-to-day work.

I would wholeheartedly advocate what I would term a 'situational' or 'environmental' ban on them - along with most knives...

This is where the UK knife law is quite sensible to me - when applied properly. That is, you need to be able to show a good reason for carrying one over a certain size or of certain construction.

While working I have various blades with me, all of which are just tools - I assume the same can be said of you. Just about everything I carry for work would lead to me being arrested if I was carrying it about generally, but because work it's perfectly legal in that situation.

Going into town, in a playpark with my kids, going to a museum, going to the pub - what possible reason could I have for carrying?

(Self defence is an exceedingly poor reason...)

For the average someone who lives inside a major city, what reason would they have for carrying a fast deploy blade?

 

[Orion Nebula]

I don’t know if these knives would show up on the body image scanners. If a new policy mandates that everyone must walk through the body imaging scanners, that will dramatically increase the time needed for people to get through security at the airport. It will clog the airports.

I don't know how often you fly in the US, but I've been flying about 2 times per year for the past 6 years or so. I've flown out of both big airports (such as Newark) and little airports (such as Eugene, OR). All of them happened to have the full body scanners. It takes maybe 10 seconds to get in and get scanned. Meanwhile, it takes over a minute for my carry on bags to be scanned, sometimes several minutes (unless there's no one in front of me). Full body scanners are definitely not slowing anyone down. Having to take your laptop out and put it into its own bin slows things down. Taking off your shoes slows things down. Putting all of your snacks into their own bin slows things down.

And those scanners would definitely pick up one of these knives. I have long hair and usually wear it in a braid while flying. The elastic hair band always sets it off. Occasionally a bunched up sock sets it off, too. The TSA agents always seem annoyed when they don't find anything during the frisk.

 

[dvcochran]

I would wholeheartedly advocate what I would term a 'situational' or 'environmental' ban on them - along with most knives...

This is where the UK knife law is quite sensible to me - when applied properly. That is, you need to be able to show a good reason for carrying one over a certain size or of certain construction.

While working I have various blades with me, all of which are just tools - I assume the same can be said of you. Just about everything I carry for work would lead to me being arrested if I was carrying it about generally, but because work it's perfectly legal in that situation.

Going into town, in a playpark with my kids, going to a museum, going to the pub - what possible reason could I have for carrying?

(Self defence is an exceedingly poor reason...)

For the average someone who lives inside a major city, what reason would they have for carrying a fast deploy blade?

Dozens of reasons, the majority for pure convenience. Opening a package, in the kitchen, in the shop, at work, countless reasons. The knife clipped in my pocket uses utility blades. I never think of it as a defense weapon nor do it have some misguided sense of security from it but, of course I would use it as a defensive weapon if I needed to. The impression that a knife is only for foul intent or, much worse, the person carrying a pocket knife is automatically a bad person is just wrong. Far more people are killed by much more innocuous items (cars, household items, etc...).
Creating a law that says it illegal to carry something like a gun or knife is only unbalancing the equation. If makes bad people more powerful and good people more vulnerable.

 

[pdg]

Dozens of reasons, the majority for pure convenience. Opening a package, in the kitchen, in the shop, at work, countless reasons. The knife clipped in my pocket uses utility blades. I never think of it as a defense weapon nor do it have some misguided sense of security from it but, of course I would use it as a defensive weapon if I needed to. The impression that a knife is only for foul intent or, much worse, the person carrying a pocket knife is automatically a bad person is just wrong. Far more people are killed by much more innocuous items (cars, household items, etc...).

For those reasons the UK law provides - it's perfectly legal to carry a pocket knife with a non locking blade of up to 3 inches without having to prove any purpose.

Like the little penknife that lives on my keyring, it's simply a utility device.

Unless of course it's used in an aggressive manner, then it's treated legally the same as any other item used in such a way - as an offensive weapon.

Your knife (using utility blades) I would not have previously categorised as a gravity knife - my interpretation of such an implement was more like a sliding switchblade without a spring. An item designed for stabbing and poorly suited for the uses you describe.

Creating a law that says it illegal to carry something like a gun or knife is only unbalancing the equation. If makes bad people more powerful and good people more vulnerable.

It only unbalances said equation if the bad side of the equation is overwhelmingly likely to be armed in such manner, and is then prepared to actually use said arms.

Outside of the soundbite grabbing UK metropolii beloved by political campaigners it's a vanishingly rare event, where even an unsuccessful attempt makes the local news headlines.

In the county I live, some people are calling for stricter gun laws due to reports of pigeons being shot with air rifles...

If statements such as this "unbalancing the equation" or "an armed society is a polite society" were universally true, the UK should really be a very nasty and dangerous place to live where bad people proliferate and good people live in constant fear - yet it's not.

 

[MetalBoar]

I would wholeheartedly advocate what I would term a 'situational' or 'environmental' ban on them - along with most knives...

This is where the UK knife law is quite sensible to me - when applied properly. That is, you need to be able to show a good reason for carrying one over a certain size or of certain construction.

While working I have various blades with me, all of which are just tools - I assume the same can be said of you. Just about everything I carry for work would lead to me being arrested if I was carrying it about generally, but because work it's perfectly legal in that situation.

Going into town, in a playpark with my kids, going to a museum, going to the pub - what possible reason could I have for carrying?

(Self defence is an exceedingly poor reason...)

For the average someone who lives inside a major city, what reason would they have for carrying a fast deploy blade?

I'm sorry if I'm the one who pushes this thread over into banned political discourse.

As someone who cares deeply about both civil liberties and laws based on reason and not fear or bigotry I'm generally opposed to banning things without good reason. I don't think that a knife that deploys with one hand, or more quickly, or has a fixed blade is so inherently dangerous that it needs to be banned for the good of our citizens. This is particularly true in America where in a lot of places I can legally carry a gun and even if I carry it illegally it may be a lessor offense than carrying a "switch blade" or nunchucks. Historically a lot of these laws are built around classist and racist interests combined with some illogical artifacts of our 2nd amendment.

For the average someone who lives inside a major city, what reason would they have for carrying a fast deploy blade?

If well designed they are very convenient. The risk factor that they represent because they can be deployed very slightly faster than any other folder is pretty trivial if I'm a criminal planning mayhem and completely irrelevant if I'm not.

As to poly-carbonate knives and other similar "undetectable" knives I don't feel like they have enough legitimate utility that I'd fight to keep them legal but from an ethical perspective I'm not going to be campaigning to ban them outright either.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Dozens of reasons, the majority for pure convenience. Opening a package, in the kitchen, in the shop, at work, countless reasons. The knife clipped in my pocket uses utility blades. I never think of it as a defense weapon nor do it have some misguided sense of security from it but, of course I would use it as a defensive weapon if I needed to. The impression that a knife is only for foul intent or, much worse, the person carrying a pocket knife is automatically a bad person is just wrong. Far more people are killed by much more innocuous items (cars, household items, etc...).
Creating a law that says it illegal to carry something like a gun or knife is only unbalancing the equation. If makes bad people more powerful and good people more vulnerable.

My entire life (until TSA changed regulation) I always carried a knife. When single-handed opening became a thing, I usually chose one of those. Because they're easier to use. I can pick up a package, notice it still has tape/twine/whatever on it, grab my knife and have the package open without having to set it down. Not necessary, but quite a convenience in some cases. The knife I choose most of the time is "tactical", but I choose it because it's fantastic at opening things (hold a very sharp edge and has a good shape for cutting) and didn't cost much (so I don't mind abusing it).

As for the last part, that gets into politics, so I won't get into that.

 

[pdg]

I don't think that a knife that deploys with one hand, or more quickly, or has a fixed blade is so inherently dangerous that it needs to be banned for the good of our citizens

It's true that they aren't inherently more dangerous than any other sort of knife, but the fact that they can be ready to be used in a dangerous fashion much more quickly is relevant.

I do have reasons why I have the opinions that I do, but those reasons are very likely to be construed as political so I won't be sharing them openly

If you're interested, feel free to PM me though and I'll do my best to explain.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

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Gerry Seymour
@gpseymour
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[Buka]

When I fly I always get pulled out of line for extra screening. I don't know why. My wife gets a great, personal kick out of it though, usually telling the TSA workers "Check his socks, he's been hiding things in his socks forever."

Yet, I always fly armed with several weapons - none of which have ever been found by TSA, airport security or anybody else. Because I've been playing this game a whole lot longer than they have, I've been playing it since the early seventies, always with the idea of stopping a hijacking. (They were fairly common back then.) You might think airport security has always been around. It has, but not in a real, tactical sense.