Switchblades are protected by Second Amendment, top Massachusetts court rules
A Massachusetts law banning the possession of switchblades violates the Second Amendment, the state’s top court ruled Tuesday. (Image from Shutterstock)
A Massachusetts law banning the possession of switchblades violates the Second Amendment, the state’s top court ruled Tuesday.
Spring-release pocketknives are protected because folding knives were commonly used for lawful purposes—as a tool and for self-defense—at the time of the nation’s founding, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in an Aug. 27 opinion.
The court used the analysis established in the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen. The Bruen decision said a weapon is presumptively protected by the Second Amendment if it is covered by its plain text. If so, a restriction on the weapon can be justified if it is “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of [firearms] regulation.”
Under Bruen’s two-part test, a switchblade is an “arm” under the Second Amendment, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court said.
“Second Amendment protections subsume more than just firearms,” the court said.
Under the second prong of the test, the state failed to identify laws regulating bladed weapons that are similar to folded knives or switchblades in place at the nation’s founding or when the 14th Amendment was ratified, the court said.
Even though most states banned or controlled switchblades in the 1950s and 1960s, “Bruen makes clear historical regulations dating to the mid-20th century have, at best, marginal evidentiary value,” the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court said. Massachusetts has banned switchblades since 1957.
The state had argued that switchblades are not protected because they are not in common use today for self-defense and because they are “dangerous and unusual.”
But the court said switchblades are in common use because they are categorically banned only in seven states and the District of Columbia. Two other states ban blades of certain lengths. Nor do switchblades have dangerous qualities that are disproportionate to their use for self-defense, the court said.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled for David E. Canjura, who was carrying a switchblade when police searched him following a report of an altercation with his girlfriend.
The case is Commonwealth v. Canjura.
Publications covering the opinion include Boston.com, the Insurance Journal, Reuters and MassLive.com.
