A ballistic knife is a knife with a detachable blade that can be ejected to a distance of several meters/yards by pressing a trigger or operating a lever or switch on the handle. Spring-powered ballistic knives first appeared in books and press reports on Soviet and Eastern Bloc armed forces in the late 1970s. Commercially-produced ballistic knives briefly gained notoriety in the United States in the mid-1980s after they were marketed and sold in the United States and other Western countries. Since then, the marketing and sale of ballistic knives to civilians has been restricted or prohibited by law in several nations. Usage In its spring-propelled form, the blade of a ballistic knife is theoretically capable of being fired to an effective range of around 5 meters (about 16 feet) at a speed of 63 km/h (39 mph). Ballistic knives using compressed air or gas propulsion to fire the blade can be made somewhat more powerful, and do not suffer from spring fatigue over time. In addition to spring, air, or gas propulsion, the blade of a ballistic knife may also be propelled by an explosive charge, such as a blank pistol cartridge. Development, usage, and laws Soviet Union The first press reports of what became known as the ballistic knife appeared in the late 1970s in connection with the Soviet Union's special operations forces. In his book Inside The Aquarium, Viktor Suvorov described a ballistic knife as part of a Soviet spetsnaz trooper's equipment. An NRS-2 combination knife/gun was designed and developed during the 1970s at the order of the Russian Ministry of Defence and KGB of the USSR. However, the NRS-2 was not in fact a ballistic knife, but a gun hybrid (instead of launching the blade, a small barrel aligned with the blade fires a non-standard 7.62mm bullet). United States Commercial versions of the ballistic knife first appeared in the US market in the mid-1980s. After hearing uncorroborated testimony from a congressional witness that ballistic knives could be used to defeat body armor typically worn by police officers, and witnessing a staged demonstration against a wood-backed target, Senator Alphonse D'Amato of New York introduced the Ballistic Knife Prohibition Act, a bill to ban sale or possession of ballistic knives. The bill eventually failed. However, after gaining the support of Senators Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, and Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, congressional support for a ban on import