Second Amendment gives you the right to walk around in public with a switchblade, court rules

The Supreme Judicial Court today thew out a state law barring people from going out in public with a switchblade, concluding the knives are "arms" under the Second Amendment and that means people can legally pack them for self protection.

The ruling reverses the conviction of a man nabbed by Boston Police threatening his girlfriend with a switchblade - "an orange firearm-shaped knife with a spring-assisted blade" - on Temple Place in Downtown Crossing on July 3, 2020.

Suffolk County prosecutors had originally charged David Canjura with both possession of an illegal weapon and with domestic assault and battery, but dropped the domestic-violence charge when he agreed to plead guilty to the illegal possession charge - which he then appealed, on Second Amendment grounds.

The state's highest court concluded Canjura was right: Although most people associate the Second Amendment with guns, it refers to "arms" and that has been held to cover other weapons, including tasers.

The defendant argues a switchblade, at root, is a type of folding pocketknife, and law-abiding citizens have possessed folding pocketknives for lawful purposes since our nation's founding, including for self- defense. Therefore, notwithstanding its spring-loaded opening mechanism, a switchblade is an "arm" under the Second Amendment. The Commonwealth contends knives categorically are not protected by the Second Amendment because the definition of arms is limited to firearms. The Commonwealth is incorrect.

And like the US Supreme Court did in its ruling letting law-abiding citizens walk around in public with guns, the state SJC also reached back to the 1800s to try to figure out if the writers of the Second Amendment would have looked at switchblades, nodded their heads and gone: Second Amendment.

A review of the history of the American colonies reveals that knives were ubiquitous among colonists, who used them to defend their lives, obtain or produce food, and fashion articles from raw materials. ...

Contemporaneous sources refer to Eighteenth Century folding pocketknives as "pocket knives," "folding knives," "spring knives," "clasp knives," or "jackknives." Most were single-bladed, with or without a holding spring, and had simple metal handles. The term jackknife appears frequently in American colonial documents. See H.L. Peterson, American Knives: The First History and Collector's Guide 129 (1958). Early jackknives were large, single-bladed knives, ranging from four to six and one-half inches in length when closed. See id. at 130. A particular type of jackknife known as a Barlow knife "is mentioned in American records at least as early as 1779 and seems to have been in general usage at that time."

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 law- abiding citizens for lawful purposes around the time of the founding. Setting aside any question whether switchblades are in common use today for lawful purposes,6 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.

But even the Supreme Court, so far, has said states can regulate "arms" to some extent. But taking the Supreme Court's supposed historical requirement to heart and agreeing that modern conditions be damned, the SJC said that, unlike with guns, there are no real early rules regulating switchblades in Massachusetts, and so the current law barring people from walking around in public with them is unconstitutional.

Accordingly, the Commonwealth has not met its burden of demonstrating a historical tradition justifying the regulation of switchblade knives under [the state law].

And, the court continued, prosecutors failed to show that switchblades are any more dangerous than any other weapons - one possible out for regulation:

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. Certainly, like handguns, switchblade knives are particularly suitable for self-defense because they are "readily accessible . . . cannot easily be redirected or wrestled away . . . [are] eas[y] to use . . . [and] can be [held] with one hand while the other hand" uses a phone to summon help. Heller, 554 U.S. at 629.