#Automatic knives laws movie

States that completely prohibit automatic knives include Hawaii, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey.Īutomatic knives are legal in the other 44 states, though a few of those have specific restrictions. So, automatic OTF knives are not made illegal by the federal government. It’s concerned with the interstate sale of automatic knives, but it’s left to the states to make laws regarding carrying.

#Automatic knives laws movie

A year later, the Federal Switchblade Act of 1958 was enacted, and I suspect the movie influenced it.Īmazingly, that act doesn’t limit your freedom to carry an automatic knife. In the 1957 film 12 Angry Men, the jury was aghast when Henry Fonda brought a switchblade knife into their deliberations. You’ve probably heard that switchblades are illegal. Its button includes a glow-in-the-dark insert. The Hogue Compound, sold here at Unique-ARs, has an aluminum frame with G10 scales and a CPM S30V stainless steel tanto-profiled blade. The cool thing is, even if this knife sits under a carpet for 40 years, it’ll still work just fine because the springs aren’t under load all that time. When you slide the button back, it loads the springs again and overcomes the block, shooting the blade back inside. As you slide the button, it kinda overcomes a ramp, and then the springs release and the blade shoots outward. The internal springs are only loaded when the button is slid forward. The springs that eject the blade are not under tension when the blade is concealed nor when it is fully deployed. In reality, it’s much cooler, and it’s amazing that a simple design like this can still be invented. It seemed like perpetual motion, loading one spring with the force of another spring that loaded the first again.

But then, it shoots back into the handle with as much force. The blade shoots out of the end swiftly when you press the button. You’ll be shocked the first time you use an automatic OTF knife. I thought it was cool contraband when I found it, but it’s nothing like as cool as modern OTFs. It sat closed - so the spring was loaded - for so long that the spring no longer has the power to flip the blade out on its own. It’s slim, which probably reduced the mass of the blade so it would deploy more quickly. I have an old switchblade I found while tearing up the carpet in my first house. These are double-action or compound automatic OTFs No Spring Load The thing that sets these apart is that the blade can retract the same way it came out. Instead, the blade is ejected straight out the end of the handle. OTF knives are automatic, but the blade doesn’t swing out like a folding knife. Other gravity knives slide out the front of the handle but don’t use springs to assist. If you need to unfold your knife with one hand, a butterfly or balisong knife is an option. To close, you usually have to slide a button to unlock the blade and then fold - basically requiring two hands to fold it.īutterfly knives aren’t automatic, but they are “gravity knives” and fall under the same legislation as switchblades - though I never could figure out what was so great about them. There’s a spring that’s loaded when the blade is folded and the button releases the knife to unfold, thus unloading the spring. You know about folding switchblades, but those require you to hold the knife daintily so that the blade can swing out from the handle.

“Out-the-front” knives offer interesting features in a huge range of prices.Īutomatic OTFs are knives that don’t require two hands to use. They have cool technology and they flagrantly go against what your mom always told you was legal. Automatic OTF knives are all the rage right now.