KS: Knife Law Refom Significant

A growing trend in state governments is the reform of antiquated knife laws.  The laws were often passed decades ago.  They have been overtaken by Constitutional law.   Clearly, if firearms are protected under the second amendment, so are knives.

Last year, in 2013, Kansas reformed their knife laws, enacting a statewide preemption to prevent local governments from chilling the exercise of second amendment rights for knives.   The law was found to have some ambiguity, so this year, as part of an overall weapons law reform bill, it was made clear that old local laws were repealed, and that it was illegal to attempt to enforce them.  The reform law was signed by Kansas Governor Brownback.   From akti.org:

Sec. 4. K.S.A. 2013 Supp. 12-16,134 is hereby amended to read as follows:
12-16,134. (a) A municipality shall not enact or enforce any
ordinance, resolution, rule regulation or tax relating to the
transportation, possession, carrying, sale, transfer, purchase, gift, devise, licensing, registration or use of a knife or knife making components.

(b) A municipality shall not enact or enforce any ordinance,
resolution or rule regulation relating to the manufacture of a
knife that is more restrictive than any such ordinance, resolution or rule regulation relating to the manufacture of any other commercial
goods.

(c ) Any ordinance, resolution or regulation prohibited by either subsection (a) or (b) that was adopted prior to July 1, 2014, shall be null and void.

(d) No action shall be commenced or prosecuted against any individual for a violation of any ordinance, resolution or regulation that is prohibited by either subsection (a) or (b) and which was adopted prior to July 1, 2014, if such violation occurred on or after July 1, 2013.

While I am not a lawyer, the state of knife law in Kansas appears to be very close to that of constitutional carry.

The only knives that are banned are throwing stars, narrowly defined, and "ballistic knives".

No permit is required to carry any legal knife, and that means items with a point or an edge that are not throwing stars or ballistic knives.


©2014 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
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