Maine: Bill seeks to let one-armed people use switchblades

[The Straight Story]

Bill seeks to let one-armed people use switchblades

Maine, MEXICO — A local lawmaker has proposed a bill to allow one-armed people to have and carry switchblade knives.

State Rep. Sheryl Briggs, D-Mexico, said Friday that she's asking Maine to comply with a federal law that allows individuals with one arm to own or carry any switchblade knife with a blade of 3 inches or less.

“Obviously, people with just one arm cannot open anything but that type of a blade, that type of a knife,” she said. “So all we're asking is for the people with one arm to be exempt.”

A switchblade knife has a blade that opens automatically by hand pressure or opens, falls or is ejected into position.

Briggs said one-armed Mexico lawyer Paul Dumas Jr. asked her to propose the legislation.

http://www.sunjournal.com/river-valley/story/978172

[provis99]

1. Maine: the new Mississippi of the North.

Move over, Indiana.

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

4. LOL! MEXICO!

[bluescribbler]

21. Think the article was referring to the town of Mexico, ME.

Not the country south of our border.

[ima_sinnic]

5. what does that mean?

How does someone with the use of only one hand open a regular jackknife?

[jobycom]

10. I guess they go to Mississippi and get someone to open it for them?

:)

[jobycom]

8. When Maine gives us someone of the stature of Elvis Presley or William Faulkner, then maybe.

Not knocking Maine. I'm reading a Stephen King novel right now. Just defending my poor, battered state of origin. :) Not that it didn't deserve a lot of the battering...

[Crystal Clarity]

18. Hey!!! George Mitchell, Edmund Muskie, Margaret Chase Smith

and even Bill Cohen were all pretty good politicians. Not crazy about the fact that the latter 2 are R's, but at least they stood against their own party when it counted... Smith took a stand against McCarthy and Cohen refused to cover for Nixon. Not too shabby for peeps from a rural state.

Oh and Don McLean lives here in Maine ... So there! :P

[jobycom]

20. Don McLean? Don McLean???

Cool. :)

[MountainLaurel]

17. While living there

I always described it for my WV friends as "a lot like home, but with lobsters and tourists instead of coal."

[Posteritatis]

2. That's ... entertainingly specific legislation. (nt)

[jobycom]

3. Makes sense, once past the oddity of the headline. nt

[WinkyDink]

6. SOMEbody never watched "The Fugitive"!

It's a JOKE.

[jobycom]

13. What part is a joke?

:shrug:

[FSogol]

7. One-armed Mexican Lawyer?

:shrug:

Isn't a knife that falls open called a gravity or paratrooper's knife?

[jobycom]

11. "Mexico" lawyer, not "Mexican."

The town in Maine is called Mexico. Though I admit that made me stumble, too. :)

[valerief]

9. Why am I thinking of Monty Python's Black Knight now? nt

[Crystal Clarity]

14. I know. Was thinking the same thing!

:rofl:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxL11RIEb5Q

[doc03]

12. That brings up a couple questions: Does the right to

bear arms apply to knives? States have restrictions on the size and type of knives we can carry, why haven't the 2nd Amendment supporters been fighting those laws?

[Bonhomme Richard]

15. Maybe if everyone carried a sword........

nevermind.

[doc03]

16. That is against the law but a 31 shot semi auto handgun isn't n/t

[Erose999]

19. There are types of one-hand-opening kinves that are NOT switchblades. And

they are legal for anyone to own. For all intents and purposes those legal one-hand knives are just as fast as switchblades, so you might as well let people carry switchblades.



For example, on this knife there's a stud on the spine of the blade near the tang. When holding the knife in the palm, you flick the stud with your thumb to fold out the blade. The blade has a low-friction joint that allows it to move with just a flick. The blade locks in place but the lock can be operated with one hand as well.

Some of these type knives also have a spring to assist, once you have the blade out 1/3 of the way the spring will push it the rest of the way.

The only real advantage of a switchblade or other folding knife is concealment. Other than that, a knife is a knife.