A state senator wants to make brass knuckles illegal in Arizona.

Fountain Hills Republican John Kavanagh is sponsoring a bill that would make it a high level misdemeanor to own or use them.

Kavanagh has been talking to the mother of a teenager who was severely beaten by someone wearing brass knuckles, one of a series of violent assaults by a group of teenagers in the East Valley. 

“He’s a very lucky young man," Kavanagh said. "His doctor said if that had hit him a little bit - an inch over, he could be paralyzed. His spine would’ve been fractured.”

Kavanagh is hoping the proposal will be taken up this week. 

He says he was surprised to learn that the weapons were not already illegal in Arizona.