"But if you take this away from us, how will we control the commoners?

Especially the colored ones?"
From the People's Republic of New York effing City:
"The court recognizes that the District Attorney must have discretion to prosecute or not to prosecute criminal matters," Crotty wrote in his opinion and order. "The combination here, however, of a statute that does not specify how Cracco can identify a gravity knife and a a practice of prosecuting possession of gravity knives in an unclear and inconsistent manner provides police and prosecutors 'virtually unlimited' or 'unfettered' discretion to enforce the gravity knife statute. Under such circumstances, and with the lens of Cracco's past prosecution and intended future conduct, the gravity knife statute is unconstitutionally vague."
...
The law is applied almost exclusively in New York City and nowhere else in the state. A 2014 Village Voice investigation found that between 2003 and 2013, the NYPD made 60,000 arrests for alleged gravity knife possession. Eighty-six percent of those arrested were black or Hispanic.
But I'll bet people like Comrade Mayor didn't mind that part.  Because 'saving them from themselves' and 'public safety' and such.  Like the blatantly unconstitutional 'stop & frisk' that went on for years.