New Jersey - Code of Criminal Justice

 

- 2C:39-3 Prohibited Weapons and Devices...

 

e. Certain weapons. Any person who knowingly has in his

possession any gravity knife, switchblade knife, dagger,

dirk, stiletto, billy, blackjack, metal knuckle, sandclub,

slingshot, cestus or similar leather band studded with

metal filings or razor blades imbedded in wood, ballistic

knife, without any explainable lawful purpose, is guilty

of a crime of the fourth degree.

 

Forgive me if I overlooked the answer to this question in my prior search:

 

What exactly is meant by "possession" in this context? I have seen many debates between constructive vs. actual possession, carrying vs. collecting, etc. but ultimately there was nothing but individual interpretation. Before I visit my PD tomorrow to ask for clarification, I thought I would try here first. Has anyone written to a lawyer or law enforcement for clarification?

 

Reason for asking: I would like to add a push blade (dagger) to my collection but the vague wording here suggests that even owning it would be illegal.

 

Thanks

IMO, IANAL, possession means on your persons.

 

But welcome to NJ laws where everything is gray. If you ask a cop, a lawyer, or one of us, you will probaly get 3 different answers.

 

My opinion "prohibited weapon" would be a secondary charge if you commited a crime, and they wanted to pile on charges.

 

When you say push button dagger, you mean a switchblade? I wouldn't recommend carrying it with you daily, but if you bought one and put it in a case on display, I doubt you would get in trouble. Unless your house gets raided often.

 

Again I am not a lawyer, if you feel there is a risk of owning something, don't take that risk.

 

if you feel there is a risk of owning something, don't take that risk.

 

+1

if you feel there is a risk of owning something, don't take that risk.

 

I'd hate to tell you this, but some cops think all knives are illegal to be in "possession" outside the home. Hell, some cops think ARs are illegal and 15 round mags are too. It's gray for everything, welcome to NJ.

In my opinion, possession means having control over an article, even if you do not have it physically with you. You can possess an item if it is in your home. The knife law, as was posted above, says that possession is illegal if one does not have an "explainable lawfully purpose". In order to be charged found guilty of this crime, the state must prove that the possessor has or is going to use the knife unlawfully. IMO, collecting is lawful.

When Nappen spoke at the NJ2AS meeting, he stated that he got a $20,000 switch blade collection returned to a guy in NJ because he was able to prove the guy was a collector. He went on to recommend that if you are going to collect knives, you should join knife collecting clubs, subscribe to knife collecting magazines and put tags on them as to their significance. These things would go a long way to show you are a collector should you ever need to.