Daniel Lawson, a lobbyist for the American Knife and Tool Institute, holds a knife with a two-inch blade that he says is much more of a tool than it is a deadly weapon.
Wednesday, March 4, 2015 | 2 a.m.
It’s the other Second Amendment debate dividing the Legislature.
And it has nothing to do with guns.
Two bills aiming to relax current knife laws are raising new questions about the right to bear arms in a legislative session embroiled by gun legislation, setting up a battle between law enforcement and pro-knife advocates.
Lobbyists representing knife makers and owners are pushing the legislation as a civil rights matter and say murky descriptions in state law are unjustly limiting knife constitutional rights in the state. Law enforcement says loosening knife laws could prove lethal for police and the public.
The proposed laws would allow the manufacture and sale of switchblades, currently an illegal knife, in Nevada. They would also legalize the concealed carry of machetes, switchblades, dirks and daggers while eliminating a permit requirement for openly carrying them.
In an inherently Nevadan fashion, lawmakers must weigh the public safety and benefit of the two bills: Are some knives down-home tools for ranching and sporting or macabre weapons for murder?
Lawmakers who testified in favor of switchblades said they are a tool any rancher has on his belt buckle.
Assemblyman John Ellison said he used switchblades to castrate cattle when he was young.
“We carried them switchblades in our chaps for years and years,” he said.
But law enforcement authorities say knives like machetes, switchblades, dirks and daggers have a well-documented history as weapons.
“I know there are sporting and tactical uses for some of those knives,” said Chuck Callaway, a lobbyist for Las Vegas Metro Police and the Nevada Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs. “… But it’s quite clear that dirks and daggers, in particular, are weapons designed for one purpose: knife combat or killing someone. They’re not tools or designed for outdoorsmanship.”
The debate, first heard in the Senate’s Judiciary Committee on Friday, was also a dialectic on language that propelled lawmakers to reach for paper and online dictionaries. The discourse on knives proved to be head-scratching for lawmakers, who learned that arcane terms like dirks and daggers, for example, are essentially the same thing.
Nevada law doesn’t define dirks, daggers or machetes as deadly weapons or tools.
If statute defined the two types of knives as weapons, advocates say they would have greater Second Amendment protection.
The language has to be clear if laws infringe on constitutional rights to own knives, Daniel Lawson, a lobbyist for the American Knife and Tool Institute, said.
“You’re talking about a fundamental constitutional right,” he said. “It’s important people be able to exercise their rights without undue restraint and without concern about ambiguous laws. When you put any sort of restraint on any constitutional right it has to be clear.”
The bill’s sponsor, Sen. James Settelmeyer, R-Minden, said the definitions were vague as he waved Black’s Law Dictionary and Merriam-Webster’s dictionary in front of lawmakers during a hearing.
He couldn’t find definitions in Black’s and found nebulous meanings in Webster’s, defining the two knives as sharp, pointed knives.
“I don’t follow the definition because there is none, in my opinion,” he said.
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