Any idea what “explainable lawful purpose” might mean? I’m picture an 8 year old with a toy slingshot, a 30 year old wearing a 8 inch knife as part of a costume, and shifty looking 22 year old carrying a blackjack for “self defense.” Who’s in the clear?
The phrase “without any explainable lawful purpose” means that the defendant possessed it for its unlawful use as a weapon. What non-weapon, lawful uses one might have for these items is not specifically contemplated by the statute, and is up to a judge. But we can imagine things like a martial arts exhibition, theater performance, cutting pineapples, etc.
Collector, museum docent, academic researcher, studio props…lots of folks could have an explainable lawful purpose. Does NJ articulate what it considers as lawful purposes?
probably not - because as you point out, there are so many different explainable lawful purposes. Use of that phrase in the statute gives the courts the discretion to define those lawful purposes on a case-by-case basis. It doesn’t strike me as an unusual drafting technique.
It’s pretty intuitive really - if someone’s carrying a knife, but they can prove they’re a carpenter on the way to a job and it’s one of their tools, that’d be an ‘explainable lawful purpose’; if you catch a guy with a crowbar but he can prove he’s a mechanic on the way to the garage that’d be lawful; if you have a slingshot but you can prove you’re going hunting (and hunting is legal) then that’s fine, etc.
On the other hand, I watched a guy getting arrested for carrying a knife, and he used the ‘I’m a carpenter’ excuse; the police said, “why do you need to have your knife on you, in your jacket, at 11pm on a saturday night, outside a club?” :smack:
FWIW, California defines “dirk or dagger” the following way:
In the section, the Penal Code prohibits carrying any concealed dirk or dagger. So you’re good as long as you’re keeping that knife obvious on you (probably in a sheath?) and not waving it around publicly in an area you shouldn’t be (assault).
I dunno, the vast majority of knives I’ve encountered, including a number of combat knives, have typically only had a single sharpened edge on them, with the back edge being flat with no cutting surface.
Here again, it depends on how you read the definition. The blade of most knives are sharpened double-edged (I have some that are single edged like scissors). The picture in my cite was a double edged blade (sharpened on one side).
Double-edged blade generally means a blade two cutting surfaces, i.e., if you hold the blade out horizontally away from you, both the left and right edges are sharpened and capable of cutting. Single-edged means that only one of those edges is sharpened. Short double-edged blades are usually classified as daggers; similar blades with a single edge are usually considered to be knives. This classification applies regardless of how the edge itself is sharpened.
I’m a chef and I own my own set of knives, which I carry in a special knife case. They’re fairly expensive knives, so I take them home with me each day. I live only three blocks from work, and occasionally I walk to and from the job, so I have to be prepared to “explain myself” if a cop decides to stop me for some reason and wants to know why I’m carrying all these knives. Of course, they’re pretty obviously kitchen knives, not intended as weapons.
I had to ask a city cop about this kind of thing (I’m in central Washington, however). For a while I was collecting decorative swords, purchased from a shop a few blocks from my house. I didn’t have a car at the time, so I had to walk home with my purchases. I also carried them with me now and then when walking to a neighbor’s house to play Dungeons & Dragons, to show them to my fellow gamers. So I asked the cop if there was any city or state ordinance prohibiting my carrying them in public like that, and he essentially said that as long as they were sheathed and I wasn’t waving them around, there shouldn’t be any problem.
In the law quote from the OP, it says that people are forbidden from having the listed weapons in their possesion. Does this mean in legal context to own, even if the dagger is at home in a closed and safe glass case; or does it mean to carry around? Because I can see why the lawmakers and police consider carrying (esp. concealed) special kinds of weapons dangerous, collecting them and keeping them at home is different, no?
I would suggest that it all depends on context and circumstance. For example, at the gun range I once belonged to, I (as a safety officer of the range) could give–that is, physically hand over–a firearm to a new member who had never before used a firearm. This meant that technically, a person who had no license of any sort could “possess” a firearm on our range. But they were possessing and shooting under my, and other range officers’, supervision. That was fine under the law (note that “the law” may differ in your jurisdiction.) But if I, at home, was to hand my favourite rifle to my wife (who has no firearms license or documentation allowing her to “possess” a firearm), who might then carry it around the house (an unlicensed-for-shooting area), that might be a different story.
This is, as I implied, very much a “depends on circumstance and location” question. I happen to live in a jurisdiction that regulates possession and use of firearms to the max; although I recognize that not all members of the SDMB are subject to such restrictions. You have a good question, constanze, but you have to realize that the states and provinces of the various nations involved may give you very different answers.
This is basically a note in the law telling the judge, jury, and prosecuter to be reasonable and exercise some (gasp) judgement rather than obey the letter of the law to the nth degree. Extreme I know…but whatcha going to do?
Basically, this is saying XYZ is illegal, but if you have an actual reason for doing/having XYZ here is your legal technical “out”.
Seconded. I have a number of pocket knives, utility knives, and kitchen knives, and all of them have a single edge. One has a clip point, but it’s not sharpened at all. Even a lot of combat or hunting knives are single edged. For example, the ka-bar and bowie knife are single edged, though often with a sharpened clip point.
Double-edged blade generally means a blade two cutting surfaces, i.e., if you hold the blade out horizontally away from you, both the left and right edges are sharpened and capable of cutting. Single-edged means that only one of those edges is sharpened. Short double-edged blades are usually classified as daggers; similar blades with a single edge are usually considered to be knives. This classification applies regardless of how the edge itself is sharpened.