The steak dinner came as Ritter was savoring his many successful attempts at repealing the nation's knife laws. Decades-old restrictions on switchblades, daggers and stilettos have fallen away in state after state in recent years. Much of this is because of Ritter and his little-known Arizona-based advocacy group Knife Rights, which has used tactics borrowed from the National Rifle Association to rack up legislative victories across the nation. And many of the changes have escaped widespread notice, obscured, in part, by the nation's focus on guns.
But knife fans know. The morning after his steak dinner, Ritter walked like a celebrity into a major knife convention here.
"Thank you for everything you're doing for us. Really," an official with knife maker Ka-Bar told him.
"I live in Louisiana, so thank you," said another convention-goer, hailing from a state that abandoned its switchblade ban this summer.
Ritter, 65, said that knives, like guns, should be considered arms protected by the Second Amendment. He doesn't support any restriction on knives - not on switchblades or push daggers or even the ballistic knives that shoot like spears from a handle.
That's become a winning argument. Twenty-one states have repealed or weakened their knife laws since 2010, many of them with bipartisan support, including Colorado, Michigan and Illinois. New York came close to doing the same last year. Ohio could be next. Texas passed its bill last year despite a high-profile stabbing death just days before lawmakers voted. And Knife Rights, with little financial backing, has been working behind the scenes to help make it happen.
"A lot of people said it would be impossible to repeal a switchblade law in any state. Insane. Tilting at windmills," Ritter said. "Turns out they were wrong."
The success of Knife Rights comes as calls for weapons
