(CN) – While the nation watched as Hurricane Harvey dumped a biblical deluge upon Houston, officials in Texas quietly implemented a new bipartisan law that expands the kinds of knives Texans can legally carry.
Under the law that went into effect Sept. 1, Texans are free to carry Bowie knives, machetes, even swords and spears, provided they are not in a location-restricted place, like a polling location, bar or church. The blades in those locations cannot be longer than 5.5 inches.
One might think that the state with the slogan “Don’t mess with Texas” is just being itself with its new knife law, known as HB 1935. However, in the weeks since the law went into effect, little has changed. Consumers are not buying up the biggest knives they can find and police officers have not changed their tactics.
Instead, Texas joins a handful of states in the union that have reformed their knife laws. And at a time when the partisan divide is widening between Americans, these reforms often come with bipartisan support.
“Part of it is that Republicans perceive this sort of as a Second Amendment issue and see it in the traditional you-ought-to-be-able-to-carry-whatever-it-is-you-want-to-carry-to-defend-yourself issue” said Todd Rathner, lobbyist for the organization Knife Rights, which helped guide the legislation through. “And then Democrats see this as criminal justice reform.”
In Knife Rights’ effort to roll back laws it sees as restrictive, it has received support from across the political spectrum, Rathner said, from the National Rifle Association to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Rathner said Democratic lawmakers representing urban areas often support knife reform because it lessens the reasons for police officers have for stopping and searching individuals.
The concern stems from the 2015 death of Freddie Grey, who was stopped by police in Baltimore while carrying what appeared to be an illegal knife. Grey died after being severely injured in police custody and his death sparked protests in the city.
Indeed, if it wasn’t for the effort of the bill’s Democratic co-sponsor – Rep. Harold Dutton Jr., D-Houston –HB 1935 would not have become law, Rathner said.
In the spring, the Texas bill that would have struck the term “illegal knife” from the state’s codes – thereby legalizing blades like stilettos and throwing knives – slid through its committee unanimously.
But on May 1, as the bill was about to head to the full Texas House of Representatives, a student at the University of Texas at Austin went on a campus stabbing spree with a large knife, killing one and injuring three.
Rathner said the reaction to the attack was a “dramatic emotional wave.” The fate of HB 1935 was in jeopardy.
“It’s fascinating but some of the Republicans were reluctant to move the bill in the wake of this stabbing,” Rathner said. “Not the Republican sponsor, but the Republicans in the House were starting to tell the sponsor, ‘Maybe you should wait until next year. Let’s not do this.’”
If the bill died, those working to pass the bill, like Knife Rights, would have had to wait until 2019 to try again, because the Texas Legislature meets every other year.