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July 13, 9:42 a.m.

Doug Ritter, Chairman and CEO of "Knife Rights Inc." shared some good news for knife owners, manufacturers, importers and enthusiasts who enjoy using one-hand-opening, spring-assisted, and plain old pocketknives. As many BLADE Blog readers know, U.S. Customs has been attempting to outlaw the importation of one-hand-opening, spring-assisted folders, and rewrite the Switchblade Law to include such folders. Knife Rights Inc. and The American Knife & Tool Institute have been working on language and amendments to exclude such utility folders from falling under the definition of switchblades.

Here's the good news on that front:

The language and amendment that Knife Rights Inc. and the American Knife & Tool Institute have been working on, an amendment to the Federal Switchblade Act, has passed in the Senate. After passage of the DHS Appropriations Bill, expected this evening, next stop will be Conference Committee.

   View the amendment here: http://www.KnifeRights.org/SAmdt%201447.pdf

You deserve to give yourself a big pat on the back for this. It was your letters, faxes and emails that led to this success. This amendment will stop Customs' rule making and protect your pocket knives with a permanent solution.

Our thanks to Senators Cornyn, Pryor, Hatch, Vitter, Risch, Chambliss, Corker, Enzi, Barrasso, Graham, Roberts, Wyden and Crapo for co-sponsoring this amendment. 

We only have one more hurdle, getting through the Conference Committee. Our legislative consultants are already working on that in cooperation with the other advocacy groups and the House members who have been supporting this effort from early on. We should know by early next week what, if anything, we need to do to help that process. 

It is never a done deal in politics, until it is actually done. Having said that, we have shown ourselves to be a force to be reckoned with. Right now it is time to celebrate our success so far, having overcome great odds to get to this point. We'll be in touch again once we settle on the most effective strategy for the next step. 

David D. Kowalski, American Knife & Tool Institute's Communications Coordinator, has this to say:
 

Senators Cornyn, Pryor, Wyden, Crapo, Hatch, Vitter, Risch, Chambliss, Corker, Enzi, Barrasso, Graham and Roberts co-sponsored this substantive amendment late on July 8. AKTI thanks them.

The language mirrors the Texas Switchblade Amendment language singed into law June 18. It will be added to the Federal Switchblade Act at Section 1244 (Exceptions) as item (5). It reads ...

(5) a knife that contains a spring, detent, or other mechanism designed to create a bias toward closure of the blade and that requires exertion applied to the blade by hand, wrist or arm to overcome the bias toward closure to assist in opening the knife.

AKTI believes this will protect all importers and domestic producers of assisted openers and folding knives from the very broad re-definition language proposed by Customs.

We now move back to the House to attempt to get matching language there. Stay tuned early next week for a new call to action in the House.

July 9, 11:55 a.m.

Since I last blogged three days ago (see under the July 6 blog entry), I found out about another senator making his own argument against Customs rewriting the Switchblade Law, and for emphasis, he pulled out his own knife during House Rules Committee proceedings.

Check out the story published in Idaho's Lewiston Tribune:

Sen. Minnick Makes His Point With Pocketknife

BY WILLIAM L. SPENCE - LEWISTON TRIBUNE

Rep. Walt Minnick, D-Idaho, together with Rep. Robert Latta, R-Ohio, met with the House Rules Committee this week, seeking approval to attach an amendment to an appropriations bill. The amendment would have blocked a U.S. Customs effort to change a 50-year-old definition and reclassify certain spring-assisted knives as switchblades, which are illegal in some states.

Spring-assisted knives can be opened one-handed, but they lack the button traditional switchblades have. The American Knife and Tool Institute estimates they account for 80 percent of all pocket knives sold in this country.

Although the Customs ruling - which has yet to be finalized - is directed specifically at imported knives, American manufacturers like Idaho's Buck Knives are concerned it could eventually affect interstate commerce and thereby curtail their production.

While explaining all this to the committee, Minnick pulled out his handy Buck pocketknife and flicked it open.

"Some of the committee members haven't been in the outdoors as much as people in Idaho, so I thought that was the best way to show them (what type of implements might be affected by the Customs ruling)," Minnick said. "It was educational and useful. I think we had everyone on the committee convinced that what Customs is doing makes no sense, (although) one senior member said that was the first time anyone had pulled a knife on the committee."

The committee chairman ultimately declined to allow any amendments to the Bill. But Latta recently sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano asking that the ruling be tabled; the letter was signed by more than 80 House Republicans and Democrats. Idaho's entire congressional delegation sent a similar letter to Napolitano last week.

July 6, 10:04 a.m.

On our BLADE Blog, we've been keeping you abreast of what is happening with Customs' efforts to change the 1958 Switchblade Act, and thus stop the importation of one-hand-opening, spring-assisted knives, reclassifying them as switchblades.

We're proud to report that one member of Congress, and a sitting member of the Homeland Security committee, Rep. Pete Olson, wrote a fantastic letter to his colleagues at the Department of Homeland Security.

Olson copied Secretary Janet Napolitano on the letter, explaining why rewriting the switchblade law is just plain wrong. Here is his letter in its entirety:

July 2, 2009

Very respectfully,
 
 Pete Olson
Member of Congress