HR 60
Cleared committee
Allows people who may lawfully possess knives to carry them across state and local lines, overriding conflicting state and local knife laws when the knives are locked away and kept out of the passenger compartment.
Official title: Knife Owners’ Protection Act of 2025
Timeline each lane is a chamber; dates pull from congress.gov actions
House
Introduced
03-JAN-2025
Referred
03-JAN-2025
Approved by committee
25-MAR-2025
- Overrides conflicting state, local, and federal knife rules for people not otherwise barred by federal law from possessing knives.
- Requires knives in vehicles to be outside the passenger compartment or in a locked container, glove compartment, or console, and requires knives on aircraft to be in a locked container outside the passenger cabin.
- Allows emergency escape tools with blunt-tipped or guarded blades, such as seatbelt cutters, to stay in a vehicle's passenger compartment, except on aircraft subject to TSA screening.
- Protects overnight stays and other stops along a journey, and bars arrest or detention for compliant transport unless there is probable cause of noncompliance.
- Lets individuals raise the law as a defense, requires prosecutors to prove noncompliance beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal cases, allows civil suits against officials who violate these rights, and requires courts to award attorney's fees to prevailing individuals.
Current. The Congressional Research Service's summary covers the bill's latest wording (Introduced in House, 03-JAN-2025).
CRS is the Library of Congress's nonpartisan research office. Read it on congress.gov- Judiciary Committee (House)
Crime and Law Enforcement
■ 5 R
5 Republicans