Public Safety: Are Hatpins Enough?

PUBLIC SAFETY Are Hatpins Enough? Worried about muggers and other molesters, a pretty Manhattan secretary named Arlene Del Fava armed herself with a switchblade knife. She was just in time. While walking home a fortnight ago, she was attacked by a man who, she suspected, was a rapist, and she fought him off with her knife. Result: the police arrested him—and her. Reason: New York's stiff Sullivan Law bans switchblade knives. Up for trial this week, Victim Del Fava, 27, faces a maximum penalty of seven years in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Whatever her fate—and in a city warmly sympathetic...