Knives - once and for all. LEOs? Lawyers?

[OneGuy67]

I fully understand this is "unofficial", and your input is much appreciated sir, as is your service. I figured about the butterfly knives... any input about whether they're affected by the 3.5" definition? I'm thinking one might not be a "Knife" as defined in C.R.S. above, so is it even still a "gravity knife"? I know, I'm getting way too detailed probably... I do that, especially in Hypothetical Land.

By the strictest interpretation of the statute, anything with a blade length over 3.5 inches is illegal.

CRS 18-12-101(e) defines a gravity knife as "means any knife that has a blade released from the handle or sheath thereof by the force of gravity or the application of centrifugal force." ~ thus your butterfly knife that is opened by flicking it around and using centrifugal force to manipulate its opening (or its cutting you if the blade is reversed by accident).

Conversely, CRS 18-12-101 (f) defines a knife as "any dagger, dirk, knife, or stilletto with a blade over three and one-half inches in length, or any other dangerous instrument capable of inflicting cutting, stabbing, or tearing wounds, but does not include a hunting or fishing knife carried for sports use. The issue that a knife is a hunting or a fishing knife must be raised as an affirmative defense." They have charged people with using a screwdriver under this statute as the instrument stabbed and tore wounds.

I do believe that you would not have any problems if you are carrying your Campanion knife and contacted by park rangers, law enforcement, etc. and you articulate the reason for carrying it, which sounded pretty rational to me.

However, as with anything ever discussed here on this forum, there are those officers who are new, who are ignorant, who are fearful, who are plain dumb, that may question your carrying of such a blade length. I'm sure they are out there somewhere. As much as I try to educate officers I come across who's training is lacking, there are too many out there, too many new ones coming in and too many hypothetical situations to try to get them to reason through.

I apologize for my profession.

[Irving]

I carry a knife with a 5" blade in my car as a part of my little BOB. It is usually in my passenger compartment. Will that ever be an issue?

[van7559]

a fawk I just cut myself!

[cstone]

a fawk I just cut myself!

How long was the blade? Was the blade assisted, button or lever activated?

Just saying.

[Irving]

Is the fact that there is no such thing as centrifugal force defensible in court?

[ldmaster]

First a story... I had my gun seized as potential evidence in a case that was dropped. I went to retrieve it from Jeffco SO and asked for the ammunition that was in the gun too. The property clerk smirked at me and said that they dont return ammunition EVER. I asked why and he gave me some excuse about not wanting to get shot. So I asked him if it were legal for me to carry openly/loaded and he said yes. With the smirk still on his face, I pushed the backup mag into the gun, loaded it and put it in my holster and smirked right back at him.

Ted Mink is VERY anti civilian in the sense that he doesn't think that we have inherent rights to self-defense, he was an elitist about this back then (only LEO's have the right to carry a gun) back when I had dealings with him and his personality, from stories I have heard, hasn't changed according to deputies and others I've talked to. So the deputy taking your knife and forcing you to go to the SO to pick it up, is PROBABLY an internal policy that Mink set up to mess with people. There is no law that says a temporarily seized item cannot be returned to a person after it has been found that there is no reason to arrest them. Sounds like "Minks Law".

All that being said, I'm LE (but as you have guessed NOT for Jeffco). The state law is pretty generic, in the sense that it mirrors language that came about circa 1968 when a generic set of weapons laws were adopted by MOST states in response to civils rights rioting after the murder of MLK, we owe, in part, many of our weapons laws to a racist knee-jerk reaction to those times. It also gave us the GCA of 1968 (backed by the NRA even) that kept a poor black man in Mississippi from buying an inexpensive rifle from a mail order company in another state, if he wanted a gun he had to buy it from a locally licensed dealer - and you can be sure the color of your skin counted in whether or not they'd sell you a gun to defend yourself from the Klan. The arbitrary length and switchblade thing came with that territory. ARgh, I almost went on a rant there... back on topic...

You don't have to worry too much about state law, what you have to worry about is Municipal Code. And you don't need to be a city or town to have a municipal code, a few counties use them too. Because we are "home rule" city's can and do pass more restrictive laws that are more restrictive than state limits.

You can see if your municipality uses a particularly POPULAR form of municipal code by checking at www.municode.com. They are like Lexis/Nexus in the sense that they actually have copyright to the code, and the municipalities actually LEASE the use of the majority of the code from the company. They also put in the individual codes adopted by various city council's or whatever.

If you do not find your city listed there, it does not mean your city doesn't have it's own municipal code covering you, they might have just written their own.

Why use municipal code? The answer is very very obvious. Money.

Let's say I write a ticket to a driver for a traffic offense and I use a county form to do it. If they are found guilty the fine gets split between the city I work for and the county it was written in. Way back when, in response to municipalities wanting more control over the fine money, the state legislature published something called the "Model Traffic Code" and it was essentially a copy of state motor vehicle laws that a city could adopt and use for it's own court system. It does not, in general, cover commercial vehicle stuff like semi's and hazmat. If you have a ticket issued by a city in Colorado, the citation of the violation will most likely start with "MTC-..." that stands for Model Traffic Code. If you get a ticket from the State Patrol or a regular county deputy, it most likely says, "CRS-..." or Colorado Revised Statutes. The city uses the "model traffic code" to prosecute people in their own municipal court and the city gets to keep 100 percent of the fine money, they don't have to share. MOST city's have adopted copies of most minor crimes (and some major ones) into their municipal code, again, because they get to keep all the money. For some cities, like Denver or Aurora or Lakewood, this fine money is a SIGNIFICANT source of income for the city. The only rule is that the maximum fine is 1000 bucks and/or 1 year in jail.

The City of Denver, for instance, has banned folding knives that can be (and I'm quoting here)

"opened with a flick of a finger".

Don't hop on how that's terribly vague - it IS vague. Officers in many jurisdictions can/will charge you with something simply because while they will SAY there is not a "quota" having to do with tickets, if an officer isn't "productive" he gets into trouble - how to tell if a cop is productive? How many municipal code tickets has he written? Don't break the law, and if you are legal in your locality, it doesn't mean that if you walk into downtown denver with your 4 inch folder you will still be legal. This was part of the big stink about CCW laws, in that Denver claimed that they could restrict CCW further than the state did, there was a big court battle over this - think "preemption". So while you're good with your pistol after they lost, nobody is going to pass a "Universal Knife" act and fight the same battle for your pocketknife.

I've always thought that there should be a section in the POST training currriculum that addressed municipal code, but there's not. County deputy sheriff's generally are ignorant of municipal code and it's ramifications (because they use the county court for their tickets). A municipal code violation for assault is CALLED a "code violation" (like a lawnmowing ticket) but it's reported the same to the CBI and FBI as a violent crime.

And in case you're wondering, YES, you can get a "ticket" for something like burglary - without being arrested and booked. Doesn't mean you dont go to court ultimately, but you dont get booked, which also means the officer doesn't have to waste two hours processing you at the jail, he can move on to write more cash producing tickets for his city. It also affects the FBI's crime index - careful tweaking of WHAT you charge someone with and your crime stats go down. One great variance with state code is the assault statute. According to state law there is no such thing as "battery" there is only assault, the intent or stated intent to harm someone is generally covered under "harassment". But in most muni codes you're find an "assault and battery" definition. Assault being the attempt or stated intent to do harm, and battery being the actual harm. I hate that by the way, threatening to "kick someone's ass" is actually assault... We get these definitions via the municode.com team, culling only the finest and picayune of the laws from major city's, we get them in a nice lump sum that isn't even addressed in state statute.

Don't count on the kindness of a cop in a city keeping you out of trouble just because you are a "good guy" - that spyderco police model you carry? It's considered an illegal weapon, and can be worth up to $1,000 to the city that prosecutes you for it's possession. Then you're stuck with a "weapons violation" and the sheriff pulls your CCW. Don't risk it.

[Byte Stryke]

ldmaster,
you me and OneGuy67 need to go have a Beer at the old man in Broomfield one evening.
you sounds as pessimistic as I do.

OK, Almost as much as I do

[chrisguy]

ldmaster,
you me and OneGuy67 need to go have a Beer at the old man in Broomfield one evening.
you sounds as pessimistic as I do.

OK, Almost as much as I do

LMK fellas - I'm in!

[Hey it's my thread...]

[BlasterBob]

ldmaster, thanks for those posts. That was some real "eye opening" information that you furnished. I'll certainly be very careful with my Spyderco POLICE model.

[OneGuy67]

Idmaster:

Your quotes are not completely accurate and I would ask you to put all the information out if you are going to provide it.

One, county's don't use municipal code; from the name, municipality, they are offenses codified by a home rule city. A statutory city follows state statute only. Counties can and do have ordinances. The offenses may be spelled out one way or the other in municipal code, but are reported by NIBRS (National Incident Based Reporting System) coding. This coding allows for all the different types of agencies with different language to properly report their incidents to the CBI, who then forwards it to the FBI. If interested, look up NIBRS and you'll see how many different codes there are for very similar incidents. That information is collected and the UCR is generated. Not every agency in Colorado reports their incidences (crime stats) to CBI. Go to CBI's website if you want to see what this looks like. FBI's as well.

Two, Denver does have a length limit as listed in the below sections. "A flick of the finger" isn't in the municipal ordinance. See them listed at the end of this rant. Please be accurate, especially if you are quoting something as gospel.

Three, please stop perpetuating the myth that there are quotas in law enforcement. The only agency I've been aware of having such a thing is the CSP and they are required to have a specific amount of stops per hour. It doesn't say citations, it says stops. That's not to say that a CSP Trooper won't write their own mother, but that's a rant for another thread. Staying busy, showing activity doesn't necessarily mean writing tickets. Your agency have quotas? PM me and let me know which agency. I'd be interested in knowing that.

Four, Municode.com is a service provided for payment for organization of municipal and county ordinances. There are 25 cities and 2 counties in Colorado that subscribe to their service out of 271 municipalities and 64 counties. All home rule cities have their own municipal codes, which do allow the writing of offenses into their smaller municipal courts and do keep revenue generated by them. However, municode.com doesn't appear to assist in writing any ordinances. Most ordinances are written by the legal arm of the city or county, city attorney, county attorney and they do tend to utilize language that has passed muster in courts. That's why you usually will see mirror language to state statute or a neighboring agencies language. Additionally, most of the municipalities, especially in the Denver area, have the same law firm they use as a city attorney and language used in one city is usually generated for another city.

Five, municipal courts are limited to the maximum fine of $1,000.00 period. Not five $1,000.00 fines. CRS:
13-10-113. Fines and penalties.

(1) Any person convicted of violating a municipal ordinance in a municipal court of record may be incarcerated for a period not to exceed one year or fined an amount not to exceed one thousand dollars, or both.


Sixth, Denver successfully defended their municipal ordinance that has tighter restrictions on gun related items so far. The Colorado state law has been successfully challenged by different municipalities regarding certain aspects pertaining to their conflicting ordinances. In City and County of Denver v. State, No. 03 CV 3809 (Colo. Dist. Ct. Nov 5, 2004), upheld Denver’s ordinances addressing the open carrying of firearms, the banning of assault weapons and junk or “Saturday night special” guns, and the open carrying in city parks. A similar court decision in Aurora Gun Club v. City and County of Denver, No. 3 CV 8609, reached similar conclusions. Denver, Vail, and Boulder have prohibitions on assault weapons and Denver and Vail have prohibitions on large capacity (over 21 rounds) detachable magazines. Denver and Broomfield have prohibitions and regulations on firearms on public property and the open carrying of firearms in any park, parkway, mountain park or other recreational facility.

Seventh...crap. Tell you what. I'm going to stop because I don't want to sound as though I'm attacking another officer on this forum. I realize Denver and the Denver PD are their own strange little world and things that go on there that don't fly anywhere else in this state.

I apologize if it sounds as though I am attacking you, Idmaster. It isn't my intention. I do not like mis-information being put out on a public forum that someone will read and might get into trouble for following. That's it.

Sec. 38-117. - Dangerous or deadly weapons—Prohibitions.
(a)
It shall be unlawful for any person, except a law enforcement officer in the performance of duty, to wear under their clothes, or concealed about their person any dangerous or deadly weapon, including, but not by way of limitation, any pistol, revolver, rifle, shotgun, machine gun, air gun, gas operated gun, spring gun, sling shot, blackjack, nunchaku, brass knuckles or artificial knuckles of any substance whatsoever, or any switchblade knife, gravity knife, or any knife having a blade greater than three and one-half (3&#189 inches in length, or any explosive device, incendiary device or bomb, or other dangerous or deadly weapon.

Sec. 38-119. - Certain knives unlawful.
(a)
It shall be unlawful for any person to sell, display, use, possess, carry or transport any knife or instrument having the appearance of a pocket knife, the blade of which can be opened by a flick of a button, pressure on the handle, or other mechanical contrivance.
(b)
Any such knife is hereby declared to be a dangerous or deadly weapon within the meaning of section 38-117.
(c)
In addition to any other penalty imposed by lawful authority, every person convicted of any violation of this section shall be required to forfeit any such knife to the city.
(Code 1950, § 845.3)