If you are 16 years old and live in california?

Question

can you have a pocket knife with you? thats nomore then 3 inches long?

Answer 1

Every state and many cities have laws that concern the carrying of weapons, and these laws either explicitly or implicitly cover various types of knives. At the federal level, interstate commerce of switchblade, gravity or inertia operated, and ballistic knives is restricted; exceptions are granted for the armed forces, and, for switchblade knives of under 3 inches (76 mm) blade length, persons missing an arm. Local restrictions can be far greater; Portland, Oregon (which, ironically, is home of Gerber Legendary Blades) passed a law banning all pocket knives, until the measure was finally overturned by the Oregon Supreme Court. Further complications are provided by the use of such terms as "dagger", "dirk", "stiletto" and "Bowie knife" with no clear definition of what these are, as well as restrictions on blade length in the absence of any standard for how this length is to be measured. One such dispute over measurement resulted in the arbitrary seizure by US Customs of a shipment of Columbia River Knife and Tool company knives, resulting in an estimated US$1 million loss to the company before the shipment was releawed.

New designs such as assisted-opening knives make the question of what is legal to carry even more complicated. The assisted-opening design used, for example, by Kershaw employs a system by which the user starts the blade open by pressing a nub on the knife tang which extends out the back of the handle liners. The torsion bar then takes over and completes the opening of the knife. This system has is generally not considered a "switchblade" because the user must move the blade to open it.