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Oregon Knife Laws: What You Need to Know - Survival Sullivan

"Oregon is a state of stark contrast. On one side, you can own any kind of knife you want, and there are no outright restrictions on blade length. On the other side, there are intricate, lengthy and widely scattered laws covering everything from when, where and how you can carry concealed if you can carry your knife at all at one of many restricted locations. Topping it off, an absence of statewide preemption means you'll need to deal with increasingly restrictive and baffling knife restrictions in various cities and settlements throughout the state.

Worse yet, a frightening amount of legal precedent is derived from case law and opinion, not necessarily found anywhere among the statutes where a lay person could easily find or access them. This means that it is tough for even a motivated and intelligent person to come up with all the info they need to have confidence in making a correct decision without the benefit of attorney oversight where knives are concerned.

Prepare yourself: Oregon's laws on weapons violations are verbose and difficult to track through all their loops, twists and turns.

We have done much of the hard homework already in order to bring you this article, but as always you will be the one on the hook if you should run afoul of law enforcement while carrying a knife that is prohibited or just carrying a legal knife in a prohibited way in the Beaver State."

................Statutes follow at link above............
 
Thx for this link... I just added pepper spray and a horizontal mount fixed blade knife for less lethal in my carry regime. I'll peruse the article. - bb
 
Read it.

It didn't add much for me. I won't carry into schools, hospital, or courthouse, etc. Got it.

Concealed carry (I have a horizontal 3" bladed belt knife that I wear under a coat or a vest in colder seasons) they say is kinda "mushy" even with a concealed carry permit/license.

Apparently, ya pays ya nickel and ya takes yer chances!!
 
And my personal favorite...How is it that I can have a permit to legally carry a concealed handgun but If I'm carrying a concealed sheath knife in my town I could still be charged with carrying a concealed weapon? Are they really going to make the case that the knife is somehow more dangerous than the pistol?

Knife laws are stupid. :rolleyes:
 
I'd carry what I want regardless of what any law says. But I carry my frickin KA-BAR I've had for A LONG time. All day every day, Sweet Susie >:0

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The thing about certain statutes is that....

IMHO.....
Well....they should be easy enough to understand (even to a person with a 6th-grade education). And, they should be clear......if/when you've crossed the line.

Unfortunately.....
Most of the time..... they are written by some sort of legislative body (composed mostly of lawyers). And, it appears that they purposely make the statute difficult to understand.

Rrrright....like as if they were actually out to guarantee job security for their fellow lawyers.;)

Aloha, Mark
 
I've not yet been looked at sideways or questioned for having my pocket knife. I even carried it in high school and nobody said anything. Therefore, I tend to believe it isn't a big deal until you make it into a big deal. Obviously, the judge has the final say but I'll not gonna crap myself over whether or not I can have a daily used tool on my person
 
I've been carrying a knife for decades, the clip is visible at my pocket, nobody ever even looked at it, as far as I can tell. Don't know the Oregon or Washington laws, and I don't care.
 
And my personal favorite...How is it that I can have a permit to legally carry a concealed handgun but If I'm carrying a concealed sheath knife in my town I could still be charged with carrying a concealed weapon? Are they really going to make the case that the knife is somehow more dangerous than the pistol?

Knife laws are stupid. :rolleyes:

Agreed! All the laws pertaining to any sort of weapon is stupid. Should be clear cut - the 2A wasn't written about "firearms" it was written about arms, to include clubs, knives, swords, etc. If you can carry a pistol, you should be able to carry any blade you wish as well, or a sap, a club...whatever.
 
The only thing that is certain, is if you end up having to defend yourself, tell the police at the scene " I will be happy to answer all your questions after i meet with my lawyer."
 
A few things here:

Whether or not an instrument is defined as a "Dangerous Weapon" is contingent upon "the circumstances in which it is used, attempted to be used or threatened to be used'. Simply carrying a knife does not constitute those things.

Whether or not an instrument is defined as a "Deadly Weapon" is contingent upon being "specifically designed for and presently capable of causing death or serious physical injury". I think it would be difficult to prove that most folding knives with blades under 4" are "specifically designed for" causing death and injury.

Regarding "any knife having a blade that projects or swings into position by force of a spring or by centrifugal force", I'm fairly certain this was originally written to address switchblade and butterfly knives, but would most certainly apply to automatics as well. Assisted-openers, on the other hand, typically employ a torsion bar, not a spring, so the question then becomes whether or not assisted-openers, and I would add flippers, are using centrifugal force. To me, this is the big gray area, so if there are any scientists here who can get technical in defining centrifugal force, perhaps that would shed some light here.
 
This is some interesting read. What would define "specifically designed" ??? And I always wondered about the concealed question. If a knife clipped into the pocket isn't concealed,how does that translates to firearms? If its an IWB holster but the grip is visible... or pocket holster with the grip sticking out? at what degree of "cover" is it concealed enought to be concealed?
 

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