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Self-Defense

Switchblade Ban Violates Second Amendment, Fifth Circuit Holds

Eugene Volokh | 10.22.2026 8:33 AM

By Michael E. Cumpston (Wikipedia)

From Knife Rights, Inc. v. Blanche, decided yesterday by Fifth Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod, joined by Judges Don Willett and Cory Wilson:

This case presents a Second Amendment challenge to the Federal Switchblade Act (FSA)'s restrictions on switchblade knives. {Section 2 of the FSA, codified as 15 U.S.C. § 1242, … place[s] a fine of up to "$2,000 or imprison[ment] not more than five years, or both" for anyone who "knowingly introduces, or manufactures for introduction, into interstate commerce, or transports or distributes in interstate commerce, any switchblade knife."}

Applying the framework articulated in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, we hold that the FSA is unconstitutional.  We determine that switchblade knives qualify as "Arms" and are covered by the "plain text" of the Second Amendment. Because the regulation implicates the amendment, the government bears the burden of establishing that the FSA comports with well-established principles of the Second Amendment and its regulatory tradition. The government fails to meet its burden. Specifically, the FSA's restrictions on the introduction, manufacture, transportation, and distribution of switchblades fail step two's "how" analysis….

Amongst other definitions, Heller highlighted that the founding era understood the term to mean "any thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another." Switchblade knives have surely been used for "defence" and to "strike another."

Knives have been used for........

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