Bill Legalizing Gravity Knives Signed Into Law

NEW YORK — New York's ban on so-called gravity knives has been cut down. Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill Thursday repealing the ban, which reformers said criminalized common folding knives many New Yorkers use for work.

Cuomo vetoed two other repeal bills, in 2016 and 2017, but he said changes in the "legal landscape" forced him to sign this one after it landed on his desk last week. The governor cited a March federal court ruling that called the state's gravity-knife law unconstitutionally vague.

"While I remain aware of the cautious community voices, I cannot veto a bill passed by the Legislature to address a decided constitutional infirmity in existing law, as recently affirmed by a federal court," Cuomo wrote in a memo approving the bill.

The bill removes mentions of gravity knives in state law, which banned knives with locking blades that can be opened with gravity or centrifugal force.

Under the old law, cops would deem knives illegal if they could open them with the flick of a wrist, an inconsistent test that put laborers, chefs and artists at risk of arrest for carrying folding knives sold in hardware stores, lawmakers and advocates have said. The law was also disproportionately used against people of color, reformers say.

In his memo, Cuomo said could not sign the previous repeal bills because of "uniform opposition" from law enforcement officials and mayors. In 2017, he also reportedly said that year's bill was crafted "in a way that would essentially legalize all folding knives."

But while the NYPD remained opposed, none of the city's five district attorneys actively fought this year's bill, and high-profile officials such as Attorney General Letitia James supported the repeal, according to news reports.

"I remain confident that our law enforcement community will continue to keep our communities safe by pursuing anyone who uses, or attempts to use, one of these knives in an unlawful manner," Cuomo wrote.

Reformers hailed Cuomo's signature as the end of an overly broad law that ensnared innocent New Yorkers in the criminal justice system.

"No stage hand, no plumber, and no carpenter should have to risk their freedom to carry a tool they need for work. They will no longer have to," Assemblyman Dan Quart, a Manhattan Democrat, who sponsored the bill, said in a statement. "No more will unsuspecting and otherwise law abiding New Yorkers – most of them people of color – be swept up into the criminal justice system because of a broadly worded statute."