Federal law largely exempts pre-1898 firearms from regulation, on the grounds that these are antique weapons, and not terribly useful to a criminal. This is a bit of an overstatement, but you have to draw a line somewhere between modern weapons and antique weapons.
In the course of my research into knives and the Second Amendment, I found a discussion in David Wong's Knife Laws of the Fifty States of Mich. Comp. Laws sec. 750.222a, which defines a "double-edged, nonfolding stabbing instrument" but does not include "a knife, tool, implement, arrowhead, or artifact manufactured from stone by means of conchoidal fracturing."
Ah, but subsection 2 to that statute declares that such protection of neolithic knives disappears if you are transporting it in a vehicle unless it is in a container inaccesible to the driver.
ReplyDeleteThus no Flintstone-style transport of flinty knives for you!
I don't think this law affects Indian tribes.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it would affect anyone who buys reproduction (or original!) arrowheads or knives from stores in the Indian reservations.