A federal appeals court that covers Texas has ruled that the decades-old federal ban on moving switchblade knives across state lines violates the Second Amendment.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued the opinion Wednesday, Oct. 21, in a case brought by the advocacy group Knife Rights Inc., two Texas-based businesses and five individuals. Chief Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote the opinion, joined by Judges Willett and Wilson.
What the law does
Congress passed the Federal Switchblade Act in 1958. One section makes it a crime to knowingly bring switchblades into interstate commerce, make them for that purpose, or transport or distribute them across state lines, with penalties of up to $2,000 in fines and five years in prison.
The law defines a switchblade as a knife whose blade opens automatically, either by pressing a button or other device in the handle or through inertia or gravity.
A House report from the time said lawmakers wanted to take away what it called "one of the favorite weapons of our juvenile and criminal element," the opinion notes.
How the court ruled
Applying the framework from the Supreme Court's Bruen decision, the panel found that switchblades are "arms" covered by the Second Amendment. That shifted the burden to the government to show the interstate ban fits the nation's history of weapons regulation, and the panel said it did not.
The government pointed to historical laws that restricted how concealable weapons could be carried. The court said that showed a tradition of regulating the manner of carrying such weapons, not of banning their sale and transport the way the 1958 law does.
