Switchblade Ban Stymies Judges Grappling With Right to Bear Arms

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on Monday appeared perplexed about whether the right to bear arms applies to switchblade knives in an appeal brought after last year’s landmark change in Second Amendment jurisprudence that could be sent back to a lower court.

The justices seemed to need more clarity on how to apply the Supreme Court’s new precedent in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which has been widely criticized by legal scholars for its vagueness.

“Should we just wait them out and see what they do on the domestic violence case and see if Bruen goes away?” Justice Frank Gaziano asked at oral argument, before clarifying that he was being “facetious.” He was referencing United States v. Rahimi, a case currently before the Supreme Court that may resolve some of the questions Bruen did not answer.

Defendant David Canjura requested that the court drop his charges for carrying a dangerous weapon. Police officers found a switchblade on him while responding to a call about a fight between him and his girlfriend.

Massachusetts law prohibits carrying switchblades and other types of knives and weapons, and Canjura’s lawyer argues the law violates his Second Amendment rights.

The court’s decision could inspire other defendants convicted of weapon charges to challenge Massachusetts regulations and impact the state’s ability to regulate other weapons.

Are Knives Arms?

Challenges to Massachusetts’ weapon laws, some of the strictest in the nation, amplified after the US Supreme Court last year changed the legal test state governments have to pass to prove their weapon restrictions are lawful in Bruen. Regulators now have to prove a law would have been consistent with the nation’s historical understanding of firearm regulation, which makes it more difficult for gun laws to survive court scrutiny.

“I still don’t know what national historic tradition means. I don’t know what regulation after 1868 counts,” said Justice David Lowy, referencing the year the Fourteenth Amendment applied the Second Amendment to the states.

“I can’t say for sure what the Supreme Court was thinking,” said Kaitlyn Gerber, an attorney for the Committee for Public Counsel Services’ public defender division, who represents Canjura.

Canjura’s case rests on whether knives were intended by Congress to be considered in their definition of “arms” protected by the Second Amendment. Fighting knives, which include switchblades, date back to the Stone Age, and the framers of the Constitution clearly intended to include them, the defendant said in a brief.

Although prior case law “is about firearms, it’s not limited to firearms,” Gerber said. “The Second Amendment applies to any weapons” that are generally owned by law-abiding citizens for legal purposes, the brief said.

The state claims in a brief that “handguns clearly fall under the Second Amendment’s protections; knives do not.” The state hasn’t historically considered knives arms, and even if switchblades were arms, they wouldn’t be protected “because they are weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.”

“A switchblade by its very nature is a lethal weapon whose lethality is concealed until the very second it is used to then injure,” said Elisabeth Martino, the assistant district attorney representing the state.

If the justices side with Canjura, weapons like stilettos, daggers, metallic knuckles, nunchaku, and shuriken “would likely be the subject of future litigation,” David McGowan, another assistant district attorney representing the state, said before the argument.

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in August found that butterfly knives are protected under the Second Amendment.

Could be Remanded

Several of the justices suggested the case should be sent back to a lower court so the parties could develop more evidence around the nation’s historical understanding of firearm regulation and whether switchblades are in common use for self defense, as required by Bruen precedent.

“You gave us a lot of numbers as to how many switchblades are in the stream of commerce, but that doesn’t answer the question as to whether switchblades are in common use for self defense,” Justice Serge Georges said to Gerber. “Wouldn’t that benefit from giving the Commonwealth the opportunity to marshal some sort of evidence as to whether that is or is not true?”

The attorneys representing Canjura and the state said they would prefer that the court decide the case based on the record before them.

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell (D) wrote an amicus brief urging the Supreme Judicial Court to send the case back to a lower court to give it a full opportunity to consider Canjura’s case using the Bruen guidelines.

The case is Commonwealth vs. Canjura, Mass., No. SJC-13432, oral argument 12/4/23.