For 12 years, Doug Ritter[1] has been crossing swords with anti-knife lawmakers and prosecutors, and he’s on something of a tear.
His organization, Knife Rights, has notched 29 legislative victories in 21 states in the past eight years as it seeks to protect the rights of knife owners, including last year’s repeals of switchblade bans in Colorado and Illinois enacted during the heyday of “West Side Story.”
“We’re often described by people as the NRA for knife owners,” Mr. Ritter[2] said. “We’re obviously similar. We are both a civil rights and a Second Amendment organization.”
The issue of knife control may sound like small potatoes to Americans wrestling with mass shootings and gun restrictions, but Europe provides a case study on how limiting weapons can lead to crackdowns on pocketknives and switchblades, also known as automatic knives.
An Arizona-based survival gear specialist who also designs knives, Mr. Ritter[3] said he grew concerned about U.S. restrictions on the ownership, sale and carrying of ordinary blades after traveling on business through Europe.
“European knife laws are, generally speaking, much more restrictive than in the U.S.,” he said. “One of the reasons I formed Knife Rights was that I had traveled in England and Europe, I had seen how restrictive their knife laws are and I didn’t want the U.S. to get there.”
The issue of knife control drew international attention in April after London Mayor Sadiq Khan tweeted in April that “there is never a reason to carry a knife” after banning the carrying of knives in response to an uptick of stabbings.
Fortunately for knife fans, the trend hasn’t caught on in America. “While Europe gets more restrictive, we’ve been going in the other direction,” Mr. Ritter[4] said.
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