Maine Knife Laws: No Banned Knives, No Blade Limit, and the One Concealment Rule

The Short Version

Maine is one of the simplest states in the country for a knife owner. There is one statute, 25 M.R.S. section 2001-A, and it does two things: it makes it a crime to carry a "bowie knife, dirk, stiletto or other dangerous or deadly weapon usually employed in the attack on or defense of a person" concealed, and it makes it a crime to display one "in a threatening manner." That is the whole of it. There is no blade length, no list of banned knives, no permit and no open-carry rule. The switchblade ban that used to sit in the criminal code was repealed in 2015, so an automatic knife is treated like any other knife.

For a TEKTO customer that means every knife we make is legal to own and carry in Maine, including the OTF automatics. The one judgment call is concealment of a knife built as a fighting knife: a dagger, a stiletto, a double-edged blade. The Law Court has said the test is the knife's design and primary function, not how you happened to be carrying it, so a single-edged folder in a pocket is clearly outside the statute and a double-edged one is the knife to carry in view or leave at home.

The One Statute: 25 M.R.S. Section 2001-A

Maine's knife rule sits in Title 25, the public safety title, rather than in the criminal code. Section 2001-A(1), enacted in its current form in 2003, provides that a person may not, unless excepted by law, "display in a threatening manner a firearm, slungshot, knuckles, bowie knife, dirk, stiletto or other dangerous or deadly weapon usually employed in the attack on or defense of a person," or "wear under the person's clothes or conceal about the person's person" any of the same things. Two acts, one list.

Notice what is not in the list. No pocketknife, no hunting knife, no folding knife, no automatic knife, no length. The statute names three fighting knives by type and then adds a catch-all for other weapons "usually employed in the attack on or defense of a person." Whether a given knife falls inside that catch-all is the only hard question Maine law asks, and the Law Court answered it in 2012.

Which Knives It Covers: State v. Jones

In State v. Jones, decided July 5, 2012, a probation officer found two identical folding knives clipped inside the defendant's waistband, each about seven inches open with a three-inch blade, two inches plain and one inch serrated. He was convicted of carrying a concealed weapon under section 2001-A(1)(B). The Law Court vacated the conviction. A knife falls under the phrase "other dangerous or deadly weapon usually employed in the attack on or defense of a person" only if its design or primary function is to attack or defend a person, the court held, and that is a fact-specific inquiry into the knife's intrinsic qualities, not the circumstances in which it was found. Evidence that the knives were sturdy, sharp and could hurt someone did not do it, because "that description could apply to any knife."

The practical rule that comes out of Jones is the one we give Maine customers. A single-edged folding or fixed blade made for cutting, however long and however it locks, is not a concealed weapon when it is in your pocket. A knife designed as a weapon, a dagger with two edges and a guard, a stiletto, a push dagger, is, and the State does not need to show you meant any harm. Concealing it is the offense. The statute does not define bowie knife, dirk or stiletto, so the words carry their ordinary meaning, and a large single-edged fixed blade with a clip point is the one ordinary knife close enough to "bowie" that we would carry it openly rather than under a coat.

Switchblades: Legal Since October 15, 2015

Until 2015 Maine's criminal code had a section, 17-A M.R.S. section 1055, titled "Possession or distribution of dangerous knives," that made it a crime to possess, sell or give away a knife "which has a blade that opens automatically by hand pressure applied to a button, spring or other device in the handle" or that opens by gravity or centrifugal force. The Legislature had already carved out an exception in 2011 for people with one arm. In 2015, LD 264, "An Act To Restore the Right To Possess Switchblade Knives," repealed the section outright. Governor LePage signed it on April 16, 2015, and it took effect October 15, 2015. The statute page now reads simply "(REPEALED)."

Nothing replaced it. No Maine statute today mentions a switchblade, an automatic knife, an OTF, a gravity knife, an assisted opener or a balisong, so the opening mechanism is irrelevant under state law. An automatic knife is judged exactly as any other knife is under section 2001-A: by whether it is a bowie, dirk, stiletto or a knife designed to attack or defend a person. A single-edged OTF with a drop point or tanto is a cutting tool under the Jones test and can be carried in a pocket. A double-edged OTF is the gray-area knife, for the reason above.

The Hunting, Fishing and Trapping Exception

Section 2001-A(2)(C) provides that the concealed-carry prohibition "does not apply to ... knives used to hunt, fish or trap as defined in Title 12, section 10001," which is the definitions section of Maine's fish and wildlife code. The exception is written around the knife, not the activity, and it is not conditioned on a license or on being in the field. A hunting knife, a fillet knife or a skinning knife is outside the concealment rule wherever it is. The exception is also mostly unnecessary, because a knife made to dress game or clean fish is not "usually employed in the attack on or defense of a person" in the first place. It is a belt-and-suspenders clause for the one large fixed blade that might otherwise draw a bowie argument.

Threatening Display and Criminal Threatening

The other half of section 2001-A, paragraph (1)(A), makes it a Class D crime to "display in a threatening manner" a bowie knife, dirk, stiletto or similar weapon. In practice a knife pulled during an argument is charged under the criminal code instead: criminal threatening under 17-A section 209, "intentionally or knowingly" placing another person "in fear of imminent bodily injury," is a Class D crime, and under 17-A section 1604(5)(A) any crime "committed with the use of a dangerous weapon" is sentenced "one class higher than it would otherwise be," which turns it into a Class C felony with up to five years. 17-A section 2(9) defines "use of a dangerous weapon" by the manner of use, so the knife need not be a weapon by design. A pocketknife brandished at someone qualifies. The lesson is the same one we give in every state: the knife that is legal in your pocket stops being legal the moment it is part of a threat.

Where You Cannot Carry

• SchoolsNo knife-specific statute, but Maine school boards adopt student conduct policies that bar knives of any kind, and a knife at school means suspension or expulsion and, for a dangerous weapon, a police referral. Leave it at home on school days.
  School policy
• CourthousesThe Judicial Branch bars weapons from every building it controls under Administrative Order JB-05-9 and screens at the entrance. Knives found at screening are refused, not confiscated, so leave it in the car.
  JB-05-9
• Airports and federal propertyNo knives past the checkpoint at Portland, Bangor or any other airport under federal rules, and none in a federal building or courthouse under 18 U.S.C. 930.
  TSA
• Private property and workplacesAn owner may bar knives and an employer may set a policy. The remedy is being asked to leave or being disciplined, and after that, trespass.
  Trespass
• Towns with their own ordinanceMaine preempts local firearm rules, not knife rules, so a municipality may add a restriction. We know of none that reaches an ordinary knife, but check the code of any city you spend time in.
  AKTI

Minors and Local Rules

Maine has no minimum age to buy, own or carry a knife, and no statute that treats a minor's knife differently from an adult's. Section 2001-A applies to a sixteen-year-old exactly as it applies to a forty-year-old, which means a Scout with a folding knife in a pocket is within the law and a teenager with a dagger under a jacket is not. Schools fill the gap with their own policies, and a parent is the right person to set the rest of the rules.

On local law: Maine's preemption statute, 25 M.R.S. section 2011, reserves the regulation of firearms to the State and says nothing about knives, so a city or town may pass a knife ordinance. AKTI lists Maine as a state without knife preemption. We know of no Maine municipality that restricts an ordinary knife, and none has a blade limit we have been able to find, but a local rule is the one thing this page cannot rule out, so check the code if you live in or travel to a city that worries you.

Penalties

Terms are set by 17-A section 1604 (Class D, "less than one year". Class C, five years) and fines by 17-A section 1704 (Class D, $2,000. Class C, $5,000). A Class D crime is a misdemeanor. Class C and above are felonies.

What the Internet Gets Wrong

Three things. First, that switchblades are illegal in Maine. They were, until October 15, 2015. Pages written before then, and pages copied from them, still say it. Second, that Maine bans concealed knives. It bans concealed fighting knives, and the Law Court has said an ordinary folder is not one. A pocketknife in a pocket is not a concealed weapon in Maine. Third, that Maine has a blade length limit. It has none, in any statute, for any knife. The one real rule that trips people up is the opposite of what the summaries say: the knife that is legal everywhere else in the state is still not welcome at school or in a courthouse, and a knife shown in anger is a felony-class problem regardless of what it is.

TEKTO Knives for Maine

Every TEKTO knife is legal in Maine, so the choice is about the knife, not the law. The A5 Spry and A5 Spry Mini are the OTF automatics we would carry here, in a drop point or tanto. The double-edge Spry and the A7 Zastava, with its spear point, are the two we would carry in view or keep for the truck rather than conceal, because a double-edged blade is the design a court is most likely to call a weapon under Jones. The F2 Bravo and F3 Charlie folders are pocket knives in every sense the statute cares about. For the woods, the X1 Atlas fixed blade in MagnaCut rides on a belt, open, which is how Maine expects a fixed blade to be carried anyway.