A federal appellate court ruled Wednesday that a law restricting switchblade knives violates the Second Amendment, reversing a lower court order that had dismissed the challenge.
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that switchblade knives qualify as “Arms” and are covered by the “plain text” of the Second Amendment.
Background
In 1958, the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce introduced the Federal Switchblade Act (FSA). The goal of the legislation was to combat the introduction, manufacture for introduction, transportation, and/or distribution of switchblade knives in order to “remove one of the favorite weapons of our juvenile and criminal element,” which, at its price point, was “within the reach of teenagers.”
Although Texas legalized the possession of switchblade knives in 2013, the FSA continued to restrict manufacturing them for interstate commerce and transporting or distributing them across state lines.
Section 1242 of the FSA explicitly targeted the switchblade supply chain.
Specifically, it placed a fine of up to “$2,000 or imprisonment 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.”
Section 1243 of the FSA prohibits the manufacture, sale, or possession of switchblade knives “within any Territory or possession of the United States, within Indian country … or within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”
The Lawsuit
Knife Rights, Inc. is a 501(c)(4) member advocacy organization “whose mission is primarily to challenge state and federal restrictions on bladed weapons.”
In September 2024, Knife Rights, three of its members, and two other retail plaintiffs filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, seeking a declaration that sections 1242 and 1243 of the FSA violate the Second Amendment.
The additional retail plaintiffs include RGA Auction Services and MOD Specialties. Both are federally licensed firearms dealers who attest that they sell knives, but do not currently advertise or “market the sale of automatic opening knives,” due to the FSA. Both plead that they would acquire and sell such knives if the requested relief was granted.
The government filed a motion to dismiss, asserting that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue. Even if these plaintiffs had standing, the government argued that they failed to demonstrate that the FSA implicates the Second Amendment.
In May 2025, Judge Mark Pittman granted that government’s motion to dismiss. He ruled that Section 1242 did not violate the Second Amendment because it did not amount to “an effective ban on possession” of switchblade knives.
Pittman concluded that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge Section 1243 because “they could not demonstrate a substantial threat of enforcement, especially given the absence of any known prosecutions under that provision.”
The plaintiffs appealed this decision to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
The Appeal
On Wednesday, the Fifth Circuit reversed Pittman’s ruling in part, concluding that switchblade knives qualify as “Arms,” protected by the “plain text” of the Second Amendment.
The appeal was considered by a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit, consisting of Judges Cory Wilson, Don Willett, and Chief Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod. The panel affirmed Judge Pittman’s decision to dismiss the plaintiffs’ challenge of Section 1243 of the FSA, albeit on different grounds.
As for Section 1242, the panel conducted the two-step process established in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen to determine whether the Second Amendment had been violated.
First, the court must determine whether the Second Amendment applies. Second, it must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of arms regulation.
“At step one, we conclude that the plain text of the Second Amendment covers the conduct at issue because switchblades are arms commonly used for defense and manufacturing and procuring them facilitates using them for defense,” wrote Elrod.
For step two, the panel found that “the government fails to meet its burden to demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this [nation’s] historical tradition.”
“Knives have been used for defense throughout human history, including the American founding,” wrote Elrod. “During the colonial period, ‘[e]veryone had a knife,’ and ‘as long as a man was required to defend his life,’ a ‘knife was a constant necessity.’”
The panel pointed out how springblade knives, precursors to the modern switchblade, “have been made for hundreds of years because there has always been a need for a pocketknife that can be opened easily when the hands are wet, cold, or covered with gloves.”
In the 1700s, such knives were fitted for certain types of flint-lock pistols. “If the pistol mis-fired (which frequently happened) the person would touch the release button and the blade would open up, and be available for use.”
Following the Civil War, patents for switchblade knives proliferated, and the large-scale production of such knives began shortly thereafter. The panel noted that switchblade knives are lawfully used today for “every day utility use, hunting, fishing, recreation, and camping and hiking.”
Of the nearly two hundred statutes that have regulated bladed weapons since this time, the panel found only two that do so in an analogous manner as Section 1242.
“Two laws out of nearly two hundred bring us into outlier Territory,” wrote Elrod. “And Bruen instructed that courts should not ‘uphold every modern law that remotely resembles a historical analogue,’ because doing so ‘risk[s] endorsing outliers that our ancestors would never have accepted.’”
This led the panel to find that the government failed to meet its burden to establish that the manner in which Section 1242 regulates switchblade knives “is consistent with the Second Amendment’s history, principles, and tradition.”
“Accordingly, we determine that [Section 1242] violates the Second Amendment,” the panel concluded.
“We REVERSE the district court’s grant of the government’s motion to dismiss as to the § 1242 claim. We AFFIRM the district court’s dismissal of the § 1243 claim. We REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
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