The Massachusetts Supreme Court on Aug. 27 struck down the state’s ban on carrying switchblade knives, finding the prohibition violates the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.
The case was brought by David Canjura, who was arrested in 2020 after a domestic dispute and charged with carrying a dangerous weapon in violation of the switchblade ban following a search by officers.
Canjura said he knew that carrying the knife violated the law but filed a motion to dismiss the charge, arguing that the ban violated his Second Amendment right to bear arms. A judge denied the motion, leading to an appeal that reached the state’s high court.
Massachusetts officials did not identify any historical bans on switchblades or their historical analogue, pocketknives, justices said on Tuesday. That means the ban is not allowed under a test outlined in a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision.
“The commonwealth does not identify any laws regulating bladed weapons akin to folding pocketknives generally, or switchblades particularly, in place at the time of the founding or ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Massachusetts Supreme Court Justice Serge Georges wrote for the unanimous court. “Accordingly, the commonwealth has not met its burden of demonstrating a historical tradition justifying the regulation of switchblade knives.”
The Second Amendment states, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has also found that the right to bear arms includes items such as stun guns. In one decision, District of Columbia v. Heller, justices said that “arms” refers to “weapons of offense, or armor of defense” and “any thing that a man wears for his defense, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another.”
The Massachusetts Supreme Court said that the Second Amendment covers knives, citing the historical use of knives for defense throughout U.S. history.
“In short, folding pocketknives not only fit within contemporaneous dictionary definitions of arms—which would encompass a broader category of knives that today includes switchblades—but they also were commonly possessed by lawabiding citizens for lawful purposes around the time of the founding,” Georges said. “Setting aside any question whether switchblades are in common use today for lawful purposes, we conclude switchblades are ‘arms’ for Second Amendment purposes. Therefore, the carrying of switchblades is presumptively protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment.”
Under the U.S. Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, government officials must, when facing a challenge to a regulation implicating the Second Amendment, provide proof the regulation is consistent with the nation’s history of restrictions.
Massachusetts officials pointed to three cases from the 1800s that found restrictions on certain types of knives lawful, including a ruling in Tennessee that upheld a prohibition on bowie knives. However, none of those cases involved pocketknives, which the justices said are the closest historical analog to switchblades.
The Bruen test does contain exceptions for weapons that are not in common use in the modern day or are dangerous and unusual. Switchblades are both, according to Massachusetts lawyers.
Justices said that based on the fact only seven states ban switchblades, they inferred switchblades are in common use today. There’s also nothing “uniquely dangerous” about the knives, Georges said.
“The commonwealth has not presented any evidence as to why a spring-operated mechanism that allows users to open switchblades with one hand makes switchblades uniquely dangerous when compared to a broader category of manual folding pocketknives,” he wrote.
Prosecutors and a lawyer representing Canjura did not respond to requests for comment by publication time.
