The Oklahoma Legislature Can Finally Relax...It's Almost Time for Their Summer/Fall/Early Winter Break!

My brother-in-law came by this morning with his new bass boat.  We put it into the largish puddle next to the compound and did a little trolling with jigs for sandies.  Didn’t catch much, but we got to watch a spectacular sunrise.

As we were fishing, my smartphone (with its ring-tone of Barry Switzer’s voice saying “We invented winning, we invented championships”) alerted me that Cousin Fred from Western Arkansas was calling.  Those of you who are dedicated readers of CCB (if you are, please let us know…it gets lonely writing these posts) may recall that calls from Cousin Fred are a monthly event and generally herald Fred’s latest entrepreneurial scheme.   

I asked the brother-in-law if wanted to talk to Fred (hoping he would answer the call), but he muttered something about my sister still gnawing his ass for “investing” in last month’s deal.  So, I answered…

Cousin Fred was all fired up.  It seems that he and his Korean roommate, Mr. Kim, have decided to go into the business of producing a Korean plum-based liqueur known as maesil ju (매실주) (which, translated from the Korean means, “100 proof hooch”).  Cousin Fred told me that Mr. Kim wishes to bid on the entire crop of sand plums this summer.  I told him as long as he didn’t intend on making plum ‘shine anywhere on the property he was welcome to take all the sand plums he can haul back to Arkansas.  He was delighted.

I learned my lesson with Cousin Fred years ago while I was living in Northern Virginia.  He showed up at the door one day saying that he had gotten an unbelievable deal on several crates of raw Uzbekistani coffee beans.  He asked me to store them in my garage.  He indicated that he would be roasting them in my driveway over the next couple of weeks and assured me that he had local buyers ready to take the product off his hands.  Don’t know if you’ve ever been around roasting coffee beans, but the smoke it creates smells like…well, coffee…and permeates everything.  I’m still paying off the fines and Cousin Fred’s bail bondsman Vinny “The Tool” LoStrumento.    

Somehow, I suspect Mr. Kim and I will be barging sand plums down the North Canadian, et al to Arkansas this summer.  Hell, with the rains that we’ve had, we may just make it.

But, I digress…

After an early morning of high-stakes bass fishing (the boat sank) and commodities futures trading, I was taking my morning coffee on the porch at the compound and re-reading the interior sections of yesterday’s Woodward News since the brother-in-law’s visit and Cousin Fred’s call this morning put me off my routine of driving into town for the latest edition.

On Page 3A of the 4/29 paper, I came across a short article that indicated that Her Royal Highness Mary of Fallin has signed a bill legalizing switchblade knives in Oklahoma.  Well…congratulations, I guess.  That bunch of morons on North Lincoln Boulevard actually got something done and just a day or two ahead of their summer/fall/early winter break. 

Truth be told…who cares?  It’s not like everyone walking around Woodward will be carrying a switchblade as they already do a gun.  Seriously.  First of all, Federal law (last I checked anyway) still trumps state law.  Federal law makes it a criminal offense to manufacture and/or import switchblade knives.  So while HRH says you can carry a switchblade knife…where the hell are you going to get one?

AND, why in the hell would you even want one?  Have you ever opened a switchblade?  The blade opens with such force that knife practically leaps from your hand.  How tough are you going to look when you’re confronted by a mugger and you reach into your pocket while sneering at your soon-to-be opponent.  You press the button, the blade deploys and the knife falls out of your hand and clatters on the sidewalk. 

Over the past twenty years or so, most knife makers and importers have found ways to sidestep the law.  For instance, some smart attorney type (probably not CCB’s disbarred and disgraced corporate counsel) figured out that if you put a thumb stud on a spring-loaded knife it is no longer technically a switchblade because the blade can be deployed manually (i.e., by means other than pressing a button).  Most knife manufacturers started referring to their spring-loaded wares as AO (assisted opening) or SA (spring assisted) with a tab on the spine of the blade or the aforementioned thumb screw for deployment.  In fact, in 2009, the numbnuts in the U.S. Congress modified the original 1958 statute to exclude spring assisted knives and a few others (knife makers have a powerful lobby).

Again, why would you even carry a real-honest-to-goodness switchblade unless you’re planning to re-create the fight scene in West Side Story?  I collect knives and have many, many, many AO knives.  Nowadays, they use special silicone bearings that fling that blade out at lightspeed. 

So, my point here is that the bill making an anachronistic edged weapon legal for Oklahomans to carry is a waste of time and resources.  We’re days away from the State Capitol turning into something resembling main street in Fargo (without the guy on the corner raising goats in the back of the old Kennedy Cafe) and this is the best legislation they could come up with? 

Guess we’ll have to wait until next February when the ghouls of North Lincoln Boulevard once again rise from their summery/fallish/early wintery tombs and go bat-sh*t crazy again!

Can’t wait.