Belt Buckle Knives

Belt buckle knives have been around for a long time. They are handy and efficient. A true gadget lovers tool. Once you wear one you'll never go without.

However when shopping for a belt buckle knife there are pitfalls. Some are a felony and will land you in jail. Others are cheap and will fall apart. Pick the right one and you'll have a tool you'll use forever and even pass down to your kids.

Is it legal to carry a belt buckle knife?

When it comes to legality probably the main thing to consider is intent. Of course this really applies to carry just about anything. If you're carrying a baseball bat in your car and there's a glove and a ball with it while wearing a baseball jersey you're probably ok. However the same baseball bat carried between the seats by an angry young man is now a billy club which is illegal. Same item, different intent.

I talk to a lot of District Attorneys and cops (I teach martial arts professionally) and I've heard a lot of stories of them working really hard to put someone in jail on a dangerous weapons charge for possession of something not normally considered illegal. In every case the decision to arrest or prosecute was based on intent and then they just worked really hard to figure out how to manipulate the law in a way that they could prosecute on dangerous weapons charges.

So it really mostly comes down to what do you plan on doing with your belt buckle knife.

Now if you look at the design of most belt buckle knives it pretty easy to figure out what they were designed for. Stabbing weapons really aren't good for cutting your steak. You'll take off a part of your finger at the same time.

Take a look at the belt buckle knife pictured to the right. Would this be practical for cutting open boxes or any other practical purpose? Probably not. It is designed for a thrusting motion. It's intent is to puncture. I guess if you were in some profession that it was necessary to constantly puncture things. In general anyone carrying this knife would be considered to have some bad intent.

The more recent version from the manufacturer has only a single sharpened edge but the same shape. It's still really a stabbing weapon. In most States a double edged knife is illegal. Again because it's intent is a stabbing weapon

There are a couple of states with laws that specifically name belt buckle knives. California and Nevada are the ones you have to watch. In both of these states it is this specific knife that was the law was written around.

California says that to be considered a belt buckle knife it has to be both integral and over 2 1/2 inches. Nevada just says it has to be integral. So what is intended in that law? Well the definition of integral is "necessary to be whole". Kind of a funny thing to put in the law huh.

Well the deal is that with this specific style of knife if you remove it the belt buckle itself no longer works. I.E. it is no longer whole. So you can stab somebody but your pants will fall down. The belt buckle no longer works.

The law was written this way so that other belt buckle knives that were being manufactured at the time like the Gerber Touche were not included in the definition. With the Gerber touche and similar knives the buckle still functioned as a buckle even with the knife removed. So the knife was not integral to the buckle.

One thing that is a problem with the law is the way the statute is written. One really has to know the law to realize that a lot of belt buckle knives on the market are really not illegal in any US states.

PC 12020 which is the dangerous weapons statute in California states very clearly in the beginning of the statute that "All belt buckle knives are illegal". Unfortunately it is several pages later that the statute actually defines a belt buckle knife as being "integral and over 2 1/2 inches".

So for a long time a lot of Law enforcement officers didn't know the law well enough and made some erroneous arrests. They were a little embarrased later. I've seen a few times where the state paid out some money just to get someone to sign off their rights to sue for false arrest.

But these days I think for the most part the LEO's are pretty educated in the fact that most belt buckle knives are perfectly legal. As a matter of fact LEO's are some of the biggest purchasers of belt buckle knives.

Our Pick, the best belt buckle knife

There are a lot of belt buckle knives out there and huge differences in quality. It always pays to buy quality

When it comes to a quality belt buckle knife that is perfectly legal we totally recommend the one found at Belt buckle knife

The knife was invented by Greg Gillespie. His father had given him a Gerber Touche. The Touche was a handy knife but it really wasn't designed to last. Eventually the pin that held the knife in place wore out.

Since the knives had been out of production for many years Greg decided to try to make his own. He tinkered with different designs and finally came up with a completely new design. The design is unique to all belt buckle knives.

It uses a pin to keep the knife from sliding up and down and a magnet to hold the knife on the pin. The design is quite ingenious and works great. The knife is also cradled at the bottom in the holder. There is not much opportunity for wear so they last. The're actually guaranteed for life.

He played with the design for several years. He fine tuned the tolerances until the knife easily came out of the buckle when it was needed but wouldn't fall out. After perfecting for years he finally took it to market. Being an engraver and jeweler by trade he created some beautiful designs in silver. You can get just about any design you like.

They can also create large custom orders for companies and clubs. Just contact them and you'll be amazed at what they can do. Check out the club Items page to see what they can do. Also ask about the machine engraving whch they can do but don't show on the page. It's really cool and affordable.

Blog posts about the Belt Buckle Knife

There have been some really great blog posts about the Greg Gillespie Belt Buckle Knife. Some very talented writers out there. Since there have been literally thousands of blog about the knife there's no way we could find them all. Many are in other languages so I don't even know what they say. But we've included some of our favorites here.

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Belt Buckle Knives

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Created by Shunshifu