Get Rid Of NY's Gravity Knife Ban, Reformers Urge Cuomo

NEW YORK — Reformers called on Gov. Andrew Cuomo Thursday to finally sign a bill to legalize so-called gravity knives, which has landed on his desk for a third time.

State law bans knives with locking blades that can be opened with gravity or centrifugal force. Cops deem knives illegal if they can open them with the flick of a wrist, an inconsistent test that led a federal judge to deem the gravity knife law unconstitutionally vague in a recent decision.

The state Legislature has passed a bill that would simply remove mentions of gravity knives from the state penal law. While Cuomo, a Democrat, has reportedly vetoed two similar bills before, lawmakers and lawyers say it's time to finally change a law that disproportionately targets people of color.

"It is wrong to criminalize conduct which no reasonable person walking down the street could ever know was criminal," state Assemblyman Dan Quart, a Manhattan Democrat who sponsored the bill, said at a Thursday news conference outside Cuomo's Midtown office.

Dating back to 1958, New York's gravity knife ban was meant to prohibit a particular kind of knife used in World War II that is no longer widely used here, according to Quart.

But enforcement of the law now ensnares people carrying folding knives sold in hardware stores across the city, opponents of the ban say. Artists, chefs, stagehands and laborers have faced arrest for carrying purportedly illegal knives, according to advocates.

"The way that this law has been applied means that the rights of New Yorkers, the constitutional rights of New Yorkers, are being violated on average 10 times a day in our state," said Erika Lorshbough, assistant director for legislative affairs at the New York Civil Liberties Union.

The law is also disproportionately used against people of color, reformers say. Some 85 percent of Legal Aid Society clients arrested for gravity knife possession in the first six months of last year were black or Latino, an analysis of the group's data found.

Cuomo rejected the last bill to legalize gravity knives in 2017 because it was crafted "in a way that would essentially legalize all folding knives," according to The New York Times.

But the circumstances are different now. None of the city's five district attorneys are actively fighting legalization now even though some previously opposed it, THE CITY reported this week. And high-profile officials such as City Council Speaker Corey Johnson want to do away with the ban.

There's also a federal judge's March decision that says enforcement of the law makes it "difficult if not impossible for a person who wishes to possess a folding knife to determine whether or not the knife is illegal."

Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi did not directly say whether the governor will sign the bill, which Quart said was delivered to him Thursday.

"We’ll review the legislation in the context of this latest court decision," Azzopardi said.

The bill still has at least one major opponent: The NYPD, which said it will be pushing Cuomo to veto what it called a "dangerous proposal."

"Gravity knives are in reality rapidly-deployable combat knives," NYPD spokeswoman Det. Denise Moroney said in a statement. "With over 1400 stabbings and slashings in New York City so far this year, we need Albany to work with the NYPD to keep crime low and people safe."