Should We Legalize Balisong Knife Essay Example

For those of you who are not familiar with what a butterfly knife is, it is a type of knife most commonly used within the flipping community. Unlike a normal knife it has two pivoting handles making it easier to do tricks with. If you have not seen anyone doing these tricks, I highly suggest you look up videos of balisong flipping so you can see what me and many more people have learned to do. One major downfall of balisong flipping is that balisongs are illegal in many states. This makes it hard for people in certain states to try it out.

Although balisong knives are considered illegal in some states, there are many knives that are much more dangerous that are considered legal throughout the United States. Although balisong knives are considered illegal, if you were to look at other knives there would be plenty that are much more dangerous but yet they are completely legal. Along with this some are designed especially to harm other people causing more serious injury to others. Balisongs on the other hand also have a high injury rate, but these injuries are to the owners of the knife due to them flipping it. But even then most self given injuries are minor. Along with this if you take a look at the law you will notice something odd regarding the law making balisongs illegal.

When you look at the laws regarding balisongs being illegal you will notice it is classified under the switchblade law. The Montana law classifies balisong knives under the switchblade law. This makes no sense due to the fact they are two different knives with two different characteristics. The law states that a switchblade has a switch or something else in the handle to open the knife. If you ever have handled or looked at a balisong you will notice that there are no such things on the handles of a balisong. A balisong also does not have a spring assisted handle. This info alone shows that balisongs should not be classified under the switchblade law. Although balisongs fall under the switchblade law, they're not always illegal. Balisongs are completely legal in some states.

The opposing side may argue that because balisongs are considered illegal in some states, that shows that balisongs are dangerous and therefore they should not be legal to own, use, or possess. They may also use the fact that they are dangerous. They can say that when balisongs were once legal the number of knife related injuries increased significantly. Some people say that because balisongs are banned in some states that means they should be illegal. Along with all of this some people will say that balisong knives are mostly used by criminals. But although the opposing side can argue this, this does not mean it is completely correct. 

While the opposing side may try to argue those reasons, there are many points that they used that can easily be argued. While balisongs are considered illegal in some states, there are many reasons why that happened and not all of them are because they are bad. An example of this is because of how balisongs are portrayed in movies. If you've seen a movie with a balisong chances are that it was used by criminals or used for a crime. This leads to the thought that balisongs are associated with crimes. 

This is one reason why many states are starting to legalize them. Along with that the opposing side said that balisongs should be illegal because they are dangerous. Well, for starters aren't all knives dangerous? Any knife can cut someone and some are made specifically to cut someone too. But along with this most balisong injuries will be self inflicted from flipping it. But those injuries could just be avoided completely by choice. 

Within this essay we discussed only just a small number of reasons why balisongs should be legalized. But even then we have not even gotten close to all the reasons why people believe that they should be completely legalized. Not only are there more dangerous knives, but some of the reasons they banned balisongs are not even solid legal issues. But even then balisongs are not just a knife, but instead a major essential of the sport of balisong flipping.