WASHINGTON, D.C.–The United States Senate recently approved the FY2010 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Bill Conference Report, which included an amendment to protect the use of pocketknives.
“We have been working hard to defeat this reclassification of assisted-opening knives since the potential rule change was proposed and we are very pleased that the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus won this fight to protect the millions of law abiding knife owners, manufacturers and ancillary industries from overzealous regulation,” said Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation President Jeff Crane.
The amendment, inserted into the bill in July by Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, successfully blocked the attempt by the Office of Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) to alter their interpretation of the definition of switchblade knives to include spring-assisted or one-handed-opening knives as defined under the 1958 Switchblade Knife Act.
With Senate passage, it now goes to President Obama for signature into law.
Earlier this year, the CBP proposed amending and expanding the Switchblade Knife Act of 1958 to include spring-assisted or one-handed-opening knives. The amendment clarifies that assisted-opening pocketknives are exempt from regulation.
“Without this amendment, there was a real danger that 80 percent of the pocketknives sold in the U.S. would have been reclassified as illegal switchblades, which would not only hurt knife and tool manufacturers across the nation but infringe on American’s knife-carrying rights,” said Sen. Hatch.
An Important Note for GunReports.Com Readers:
Our goal on this website is to foster a free expression of views while reining in language that crosses the line of civil discourse. Accordingly, the comments areas are intended to expand the knowledge of all users of this site. But site administrators wish to discourage the use of profanity, insults, disrespect, the advocacy of lawlessness, violence or sedition, or attempts to impinge on the rights of others.
While GunReports.Com encourages robust discourse that furthers our understanding of all the issues affecting gun owners, comments that break GunReports.Com’s rules will be removed. In addition, we reserve the right to edit or delete individual comments, and in extreme cases, to ban commenters at our discretion.
–Tim Cole
Publisher, GunReports.Com
