DEMOCRATS TARGET KNIVES
In my right hip pocket, affixed by a clasp, is a 4-inch knife made in Olean, New York.
It’s right where I can get it.
Where I can reach back with one hand, pull it out, press my thumb against a knob on the back of the blade, and open it.
Engraved on the steel is the phrase, “Carry on, my wayward son.”
In New York County, that would make me a criminal.
At least that’s the conclusion you draw from a recent extortion by the district attorney of New York County. In a $1.9 million rip-off of hardware and sporting goods stores, that big-city Democrat has declared war on one of the most popular types of pocket knives in America.
Probably you’ve seen them, maybe you have one. The design is relatively simple, and as I’ve already described. Usually the knife has a clip or clasp on the handle, to slide over the edge of a pocket, and the blade has a knob or a hole on its back that you push against with your thumb to open the knife.
Whereas a traditional pocketknife requires two hands to open – one to hold the knife, the other to pull out the blade – these knives only require one.
That is a huge convenience.
And, apparently, a huge threat.
At least to big-city Democrats.
Because Cyrus Vance Jr. has gone after them with a vengeance. He is the district attorney of New York County, which means he works in Manhattan and represents New York City. His name is familiar because his father was Jimmy Carter’s secretary of state – How’d that work out? – and one of the Democrat masterminds of the Vietnam War.
Young Cyrus is relatively new in office and apparently has a thing against knives. He has decided that knives that can be opened with one hand are what the state legislature was talking about when it outlawed switchblades and gravity knives.
Which is confusing because, well, everyone else has decided that when the legislature talked about switchblades and gravity knives it was talking about switchblades and gravity knives.
Switchblades and gravity knives – which open automatically without the operator exerting the effort to actually open the blade – are nothing like the knife in my pocket.
Yet it’s the knife in my pocket Young Cyrus is after.
Or, more specifically, he is after the money of the stores who sell knives like mine.
You know, terrible places like Home Depot, Paragon Sports and Eastern Mountain Sports.
That’s right, he’s gone to war against hardware stores and outdoor stores. The nasty people who sell home-repair supplies and camping gear.
They are the bad guy.
And, to avoid criminal charges for selling pocket knives, Young Cyrus extorted $1.9 million from seven retailers in New York County. In exchange for “deferred prosecution agreements,” the stores I’ve mentioned and four others had to give Young Cyrus four years of profits from selling knives.
They also had to turn over their entire stock of knives. All knives. Hunting knives, pocket knives, Swiss Army knives, Boy Scout knives, keychain knives. Some 1,300 knives, all surrendered to the district attorney’s office.
Further, Home Depot had to provide vast numbers of gift cards to be given away in a government “knife-buyback program.”
All of which is absolutely freaking nuts.
Because outside New York County, not a single jurisdiction has interpreted state law in such a way as to consider any of these knives illegal. In fact, around the country, tens of millions of law-abiding citizens – myself included – carry knives like these every day.
And big-city Democrats think it’s time for that to stop.
And they might get their way.
Earlier this week, Ace Hardware sent out a bulletin to all its New York state stores telling them to immediately pull pocketknives from their shelves. Until the legal situation is clarified, it’s just too risky for businesses to risk government shakedown.
And others should worry as well.
In the next-to-the-last paragraph of a statement issued by Young Cyrus was this ominous warning: “The District Attorney’s Office has begun Phase II of the investigation, targeting out-of-state vendors selling to New York residents – which is a serious crime. Those companies are opening themselves to prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.”
Further, Young Cyrus is offering a cut of the shakedown money to other counties’ district attorneys if they will join him in the crackdown.
So companies get money extorted from them by government, and that money is used to induce other governments to limit the freedom of their own citizens. It’s a lose-lose situation.
Unless you’re a big-city Democrat.
Unfortunately, this country is run by big-city Democrats.
And after taking our car companies and our health care and our banks and our electricity and our gasoline, now they want our pocketknives.
That’s change you can believe in.
- by Bob Lonsberry © 2010
