While the bottom line is that California’s ban on switchblades is still enforceable, today’s decision by a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel should keep hope alive for Knife Rights, Inc. and supporters of their lawsuit to strike down the prohibition.
In their ruling, the panel “determined that switchblades are relevantly similar to Bowie knives and other weapons in terms of the concerns they pose to legislatures (the “why”), and California’s concealed carry prohibition is relevantly similar to the manner in which historical legislatures responded to these concerns (the“how”).”
The total ban on switchblades carried in public comports with the “principles underpinning the Second Amendment, to the extent that they prohibit the concealed carry of switchblade knives in public places.”
I already think the panel’s reading is a lame dodge.
The law bans any carry, not just concealed carry. Sure, concealed carry is a possible way to carry, but this is a total ban and the panel seems to be bending over backward to think of just one application of the law that… pic.twitter.com/zuEWh743JW
— SAF (@2AFDN) January 30, 2026
So where’s the good news? Well, the panel also “stated that their holding is narrow,” and that the plaintiffs facial challenge fails “because they cannot establish that California’s switchblade regulations are unconstitutional in every one of their applications.”
That’ s basically an invitation to sue again, but this time using an as-applied challenge; meaning that the law is unconstitutional as it applies to the plaintiffs and their desire to carry a switchblade.
Unlike the district court, which held that switchblades aren’t protected by the text of the Second Amendment, the Ninth Circuit panel “assume[d] without deciding” that the plain text of the Second Amendment is implicated, which means it was up to the state of California to prove that the switchblade regulations have a basis in the national tradition of arms ownership. The district court did look at the historical analogues provided by California, though, and found that the state “failed to meet its burden to show that its regulations are consistent with the history and tradition of arms regulation in this Nation.”
The Ninth Circuit panel disagrees.
The district court rejected California’s citation to historical regulations on Bowie knives, holding that “Bowie knives are bladed instruments like the regulated switchblades,” but “[o]utside of this similarity, it is not clear what makes Bowie knives ‘representative.’” As to California’s citation to regulations on clubs, the district court explained only that “[i]t is less clear how clubs are ‘representative.’” It seems that the district court rejected these analogues on the ground that Bowie knives and club sare too dissimilar from switchblades to provide representative historical analogues. In other words, the district court appeared to require a “dead ringer” or “historical twin” that Rahimi expressly said States need no tprovide. We caution, as the Court did in Rahimi, against reading the Second Amendment or Bruen so narrowly. The State need only proffer “relevantly similar” historical analogues, and the Supreme Court has explicitly recognized that “the Constitution can, and must, apply to circumstances beyond those the founders specifically anticipated,” including “modern instruments that facilitate armed self-defense.”
So while Bowie knives were too large for some legislatures in the 1800s and switchblades too small and easily concealed for some lawmakers in the 20th century, the panel found that they were close enough to count when looking at the historical tradition.
Interestingly, though, the panel found only one similar law from around the time the Second Amendment was ratified; New Jersey prohibited the concealed carry of “daggers or dirks” as early as 1686, punishing a second offense with six months in prison. It’s not until the 1830s or so that laws prohibiting the carrying of Bowie knives, dirks, daggers, and other knives really start to come into play.
As the record and other historical analogues reveal, state legislatures banned the concealed carry of Bowie knives, dirks, daggers, and other weapons because of their common association with and use in criminal activity. Taken together, these historical analogues “confirm what common sense suggests”: states may ban the concealed carry of dangerous edged or impact weapons, such as switchblade knives, which can be used to cause devastating injury or death to a victim.
This makes no sense to me. The panel assumes that switchblades are protected by the Second Amendment, but finds a historic tradition of banning the concealed carry of “dangerous” edged or impact weapons because of their association with and use in criminal activity. But we know that the Supreme Court has said that there is no historic tradition of banning the public carrying of firearms, which, like it or not, also have an association with and use in criminal activity. I know this was a facial challenge, but it’s awfully thin legal ground to claim the law is constitutional because there’s a tradition of banning the carrying of some concealed knives.
The Supreme Court has said nothing to indicate that some arms can have lesser protections under the Second Amendment than others, but I’d argu that’s essentially what the Ninth Circuit panel is suggesting; that bladed arms aren’t as protected as pistols. The problem is, they never explain why that would be the case. Maybe because they themselves don’t have a good explanation?
Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
Help us continue to report on and expose the Democrats’ gun control policies and schemes. Join Bearing Arms VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership.
Read the full article here
