Massachusetts reverses switchblade carry ban, saying they are protected under Second Amendment

A nearly 70-year-old ban on carrying switchblades in Massachusetts was reversed by the state’s highest court on Tuesday after they determined that the knives are considered “arms” and therefore protected under the Second Amendment.

“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 lawabiding citizens for lawful purposes around the time of the founding,” Justice Serge Georges Jr. wrote inthe opinion.

The law, enacted in 1957, prohibited the possession of a switch knife or “any knife having an automatic spring release device by which the blade is released from the handle.”

But a man challenged the law in 2020 after he was charged with carrying a dangerous weapon. Officers found the switchblade on him while intervening in an altercation between him and his girlfriend.

The Massachusetts Judicial Court ultimately sided with the man, vacating the charge.

In deciding the cases, justices relied heavily on the precedent of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022). A Supreme Court case that expanded gun rights by creating a two-part test for all modern gun laws to pass. That test asks whether the Second Amendment covers the challenged regulated conduct and if the statute is consistent with U.S. “history and tradition”.

Justice Georges said switchblades fall under the definitions of the Second Amendment because they are “widely owned and accepted as a legitimate means of self-defense across the country”.

The Second Amendment protects Americans’ right to bear arms, which the court said did not just represent firearms but any weapon that could be used