Sword Canes?

[Grayfox54]

This topic came up on another site I visit and made me curious. Are sword canes legal in Tennessee? I never thought about it before and really don't have a clue.  :confused:

[Jonnin]

Yep.  You don't want to go thru the airport with it, but otherwise, its fine.

[Oh Shoot]

Maybe.

 

It can't be prohibited simply on the basis of being a "knife" per se, but there is still the catch all prohibition on "any other implement for infliction of serious bodily injury or death that has no common lawful purpose".

 

Which could apply to any sword period, if folks want to start wearing them around enough to get a court case somewhere.

 

- OS

Edited January 29, 2016 by Oh Shoot

[Jonnin]

true, though I'd argue that self defense is a lawful purpose and remind them that the 2nd says "ARMS" not "GUNS".

Edited January 29, 2016 by Jonnin

[Oh Shoot]

true, though I'd argue that self defense is a lawful purpose and remind them that the 2nd says "ARMS" not "GUNS".

 

Put that up there with "non-conforming signage" regarding 1351 as undecided by case law.

 

Problem with "self defense" is that it's largely synonymous with "going armed" the way TN law is written. And neither 2A nor "self defense" overrides fact you can't carry a loaded firearm or a club here without special privilege, for example.

 

Who knows. Highly unlikely to be brought to bear for a sword cane without some special stink arising of course.

 

- OS

Edited January 29, 2016 by Oh Shoot

[JAB]

true, though I'd argue that self defense is a lawful purpose and remind them that the 2nd says "ARMS" not "GUNS".

 

Unfortunately, there was a case waaaay back in the 1800s where a guy was arrested for carrying a Bowie knife and tried to argue the 2nd Amendment as well as the protection for arms under the Tennessee Constitution.  The court found that a Bowie knife did not fall under those protections in this state.  Interestingly, however, that was because the court was adhering to the REAL intent of the Second Amendment - the intent that citizens be able to defend themselves from a tyrannical government.  Under that interpretation, the court found that - as it was not a regular, military type weapon the Second Amendment did not protect a right to carry a Bowie knife.

 

Of course, if the courts were to take that stance, now, they'd have to admit the truth - that the Second Amendment not only doesn't legally allow the government to regulate or prohibit ownership of so-called 'military type' arms but that such arms are exactly the types of weapons that the Second Amendment and the Tennessee State Constitution protect.  I think the modern courts would likely prefer to let people carry a Bowie knife (or a sword cane.)  I think this might be the case to which I was referring - this case is from 1840:

 

http://www.guncite.com/court/state/21tn154.html

 

Notice that this phrase is actually included, even though the case was about a person carrying a Bowie knife or Arkansas toothpick:

 

 

But a prohibition to wear a spear concealed in a cane, would in no degree circumscribe the right to bear arms in the defence of the State; for this weapon could in no degree contribute to its defence, and would be worse than useless in an army.

 

Also notice that carrying a rifle for deer hunting or carrying a handgun upon one's person for self defense was NOT considered to be 'bearing arms'!

 

Here we know that the phrase has a military sense, and no other; and we must infer that it is used in the same sense in the 26th section, which secures to the citizen the right to bear arms. A man in the pursuit of deer, elk and buffaloes, might carry his rifle every day, for forty years, and, yet, it would never be said of him, that he had borne arms, much less could it be said, that a private citizen bears arms, because he has a dirk or pistol concealed under his clothes, or a spear in a cane.

Edited January 29, 2016 by JAB