Are Fixed Blade Knives Legal to Conceal and Carry in Texas?

[orangeninja]

What are the limitations? I understand that you cannot carry a Dirk, dagger, any type of double edged weapon, anything over 5 1/2 inches or a Bowie Knife...what the heck do they mean by Bowie knife? What if it's under 5 1/2?

 

[RyanM]

The limitations are going to basically be whatever the courts in your area decided. If John Doe got arrested for carrying a 4" fixed-blade, and the jury ruled that "dirk" or "bowie knife" or whatever basically means "all fixed blade knives," then so be it.

Your local district attourney would be a better person to ask.

In case it helps, the exact text of the law is thusly:

(6) "Illegal knife" means a:
(A) knife with a blade over five and one-half inches;
(B) hand instrument designed to cut or stab another by being thrown;
(C) dagger, including but not limited to a dirk, stilletto, and poniard;
(D) bowie knife;
(E) sword; or
(F) spear.

(7) "Knife" means any bladed hand instrument that is
capable of inflicting serious bodily injury or death by cutting or
stabbing a person with the instrument.

It sounds like a knife without a "proper" handle, such as the CRKT STIFF KISS, might be considered a throwing knife by a jury, so you'd want to avoid those, in addition to "bowie knives" and "poniards" and such.

 

[ruger357]

Check out this web sight. Should answer your question. www.packing.org If not you can talk to local law enforcement. That is what I did when I had a question about an automatic knife.

 

[JohnKSa]

It is possible that a fixed blade knife could fit one of the rather ill-defined categories of knives that are banned by TX Law. There are no official definitions so you're skating on thin ice.

It is clear that a folding knife under the proper blade length IS legal as long as it isn't a "gravity knife" or a "switchblade."

 

[macavada]

What's a good definition of a dirk. I've seen this in Texas law as well.

 

[orangeninja]

Well, how's about a lockblade knife, sheathed open. Like a fixed blade knife.

 

[JohnKSa]

If it folds and doesn't have a double edge it can't be a dirk, bowie or dagger. I think you'd be in pretty good shape arguing that it's not for throwing either. That just leaves switchblades and gravity knives and the blade length limit.

 

[recondoc]

I'm in San Antonio where it gets even worse. Back in the '80s there were a couple of robberies where the perps used Buck 110 style lock blade knives that had been loosened up to FLICK open and scare their victims. In their vast infinite wisdom, the city council decided that scarry knives must be much more dangerous than knives that just cut and promptly jerked their knees banning the carry of any lock blade knife in the city.
Now I can still carry a 5.5" fixed blade (as long as it is single edged) but am not allowed to carry even a 1.5" blade locking folder. As anyone with experience knows, the locking folder is much less prone to accidental closeur and therefore a safer knife to use than a slip joint style.
Will the madness never end?

The good news is the the local cops seem to selectively enforce the "Lock Blade Law" so that average guys don't get hasseled too much. None the less, it still hangs there as a viable way to get to someone with BS if they wanted to.

You may want to check out the legal section on www.bladeforums.com

Doc

 

[c_yeager]

What's a good definition of a dirk. I've seen this in Texas law as well.

TYPICALLY a dirk is double edged fixed blade, usually short in length. However since the term is ill-defined in the law it could mean whatever the court decides that it means.

 

[DigMe]

One thing I've always wondered is I have an SOG Pentagon Elite that I used to carry (now it's a CRKY Crawford/Kasper Folder) and it has the "shark tooth tip." Does anyone know if this would be considered a double-edged knife?

brad cook

 

[JohnKSa]

What's a good definition of a dirk. I've seen this in Texas law as well.

That's the problem. A good number of the illegal knives in TX law do not have clear legal definitions. What's the difference between a dagger and a dirk? What features make a knife a bowie knife? The law doesn't say.

If you want to be safe, you can carry a folding knife with a single edged blade that can't be "swung open", doesn't open automatically and has a blade under the legal length limit. Anything else and you're into trying to interpret definitions that don't exist.

The "swung open" issue has to do with gravity knives which are illegal by TX law and defined as a knife where the blade is deployed by the use of gravity or centrifugal force. This is kind of problematic as pretty much any knife with a decent length blade can be "flipped" open. Don't know how to figure that one out...

 

[8830]

I'm a cop in TX and have arrested for switch bladed knives and for a fillet knife a guy was carrying where it had a 7" blade. A few years ago while I was between cop jobs I carried a Cold Steel Kobun which has a 5.5" blade IWB. The law as I see it is that as long as it's under the 5.5" length and not double edged you're not suppose to be arrested. It just depends on what officer gets you and what they do or don't know.

 

[Tactical Texan]

I carry a copy of the penal code when I visit my folks.

It ain't what it says that gets you in trouble, it is what it don't say.

I carry my G20 legally. I also carry my Al Mar SERE Operator in a Survival Sheath shoulder sheath.

While Texas is a great state, some of the weapons' laws are a bit silly.

 

[macavada]

8830:

But isn't a cold steel ti-lite technically a stilleto? And thus illegal to carry regardles of length? I have one of these, but I have been hesitant to carry it as it has a classic stilleto profile, even though it is not automatic. Is this knife o.k. to carry in Texas?

 

[JohnKSa]

Double-edged knife=illegal in TX. That may not be what the law says, but it's pretty hard to argue that a double edged knife doesn't fall into at least one of the illegal categories. Besides, I've run into to many TX LEOs that think that way to advise people any other way.