Gravity Knife - Legality

Legality

In some countries, such as the United Kingdom, and in certain U.S. states, a gravity knife is defined under the law as a prohibited weapon, with attendant criminal penalties. Other laws may criminalize the ownership, sale, importation, or carrying of a gravity knife upon one's person, either concealed or unconcealed. In the United States, some state criminal codes prohibit either the ownership or the carrying of gravity knives, either by name or by including a functional description of their opening mechanisms. Other state criminal codes bar gravity knives by redefining them variously (though incorrectly) as switchblades or balisongs (butterfly knives). Local jurisdictions including cities and counties may also restrict the ownership or carrying of gravity knives.

Importantly, a few jurisdictions and courts have periodically attempted to classify ordinary lock-blade folding knives with a blade that may be opened by centrifugal force (normally, using a flicking motion of the wrist) as a gravity knife, thus making the knife's owner subject to the same criminal penalties imposed for illegal possession of a gravity knife.