Knife Rights Needs Our Help In New York

New York City is not only one of the most anti-gun jurisdictions in the country but also one of the most anti-knife. Their prosecutions of honest citizens for "gravity" knives is over the top. There is a bill in the New York Senate that would correct many of these abuses by clearly defining both switchblades and gravity knives. A correct definition would eliminate prosecutions for having your average lock-blade knife.

Knife Rights is urging that anyone who lives, works, or merely visits New York to contact Sen. John Flanagan who chairs the Senate Rules Committee and ask him to schedule a vote on S6483A.

Their alert is below:

New York URGENT ACTION ALERT 

CALL or EMAIL TODAY to Schedule S6483A for a Vote

 

The next hurdle to getting Knife Rights' New York Knife Law Reform bill (S6483A) passed to end the widespread persecution of those carrying pocket knives in New York City is to get the Senate Rules Committee to pass the bill so it can be voted on by the full Senate.

If you live, work or travel in New York and New York City, please CALL or EMAIL the Chairman of the Rules Committee, Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, TODAY and simply deliver the message that you are "calling/writing to respectfully request that Leader Flanagan please schedule S6483A for a vote" and then thank him. Please be POLITE and RESPECTFUL. 

CALL Majority Leader Flanagan TODAY at: 

518-455-2071

EMAIL Majority Leader Flanagan TODAY at: flanagan@nysenate.gov

Again, please be POLITE and RESPECTFUL, just deliver the message: "I am calling/writing to respectfully request that Leader Flanagan please schedule S6483A for a vote," and then thank him. That's it, keep it short and simple and above all BE POLITE and RESPECTFUL.

If Emailing, use the SUBJECT: Please Schedule S6483A for Senate Vote

If you call, they may ask you the city and state where you live, for their call record. If you email, include your city and state. In either case, if you live out-of-state, explain how you work in, or travel to, New York / New York City.

S6483A adds clarifying bias-towards closure exclusions to the state switchblade and gravity knife definitions, similar to that included in the revision to the Federal Switchblade Act that Knife Rights helped pass in 2009. This clarifying exclusion should prevent the bogus Gravity Knife arrests and prosecutions of honest law-abiding individuals in New York City who are carrying common folding knives, tools that are legal to carry everywhere else in the U.S.

Neither Gravity Knives nor Switchblades have a bias towards closure found in common folding knives to keep the blade safely closed in the pocket. Only in New York City has the NYPD and District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. abused the state's gravity knife law to prosecute those carrying simple pocket knives by claiming they are illegal Gravity Knives.

The City's Village Voice newspaper found two years ago that there had been as many as 60,000 gravity-knife prosecutions over the past decade! You can read the Village Voice article at: http://bit.ly/1MiJbvv

Hundreds of innocent pocket knife carriers are being arrested every week!

Meanwhile, our Federal Civil Rights lawsuit against New York City and District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. over these unconstitutional arrests and prosecutions continues with a trial date now scheduled for June 16, which will be just over five years since the lawsuit was filed. The quicker solution is to get S6483A passed.