Key Points

  • The Fifth Circuit held that 15 U.S.C. § 1242, the Federal Switchblade Act's ban on introducing, manufacturing for introduction, transporting or distributing switchblades in interstate commerce, violates the Second Amendment.
  • The court held that switchblades are arms in common use and that the right to keep and bear arms implies the rights to purchase, manufacture, transport and distribute them.
  • The court did not decide whether the government's concealed-weapons tradition justified the law's purpose, holding instead that the government identified no historical analogue regulating the supply of such weapons in the manner § 1242 does.
  • The court held that plaintiff Rodney Shedd has standing to challenge § 1243 but affirmed dismissal of that claim because the plaintiffs' facial challenge failed under United States v. Salerno.
  • The court reversed in part, affirmed in part and remanded to the Northern District of Texas.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Wednesday struck down the federal ban on shipping, transporting and distributing switchblade knives across state lines. The court held that the 1958 law violates the Second Amendment because the government could not identify a historical tradition of restricting the supply of bladed weapons in that manner.

Chief Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel that included Judges Willett and Wilson. The panel reversed in part a federal district court in Texas that had dismissed the suit brought by Knife Rights Inc., an advocacy group that challenges restrictions on bladed weapons, two Texas retailers and five individuals.

The decision holds that the Second Amendment protects not only keeping and carrying arms but also the manufacture and interstate trade that supply them. In a 2025 case, Reese v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, the Fifth Circuit wrote, "[T]he right to 'keep and bear arms' surely implies the right to purchase them." The panel extended that reasoning to manufacture, transport and distribution. It rejected a separate challenge to Section 1243, the Act's ban on switchblades in U.S. territories, Indian country and other areas under federal jurisdiction.

The Federal Switchblade Act defines a switchblade as a knife whose blade opens automatically, by pressure on a button or other device in the handle or by inertia or gravity. As enacted in 1958, the provision now codified at 15 U.S.C. § 1242 made it a crime, punishable by a fine of up to $2,000, up to five years in prison, or both, for anyone who "knowingly introduces, or manufactures for introduction, into interstate commerce, or transports or distributes in interstate commerce, any switchblade knife."

Elrod began the opinion's background section with the switchblade fight in the 1955 film "Rebel Without a Cause." "Congress was less entertained by the film," she wrote. A Senate subcommittee found that switchblades were often used in robberies and assaults and that many crossed state lines to evade bans in more than 20 states. The House report said Congress sought to "remove one of the favorite weapons of our juvenile and criminal element."

The district court assumed without deciding that switchblades are "arms." It then concluded that Section 1242 did not violate the Second Amendment because "switchblades are widely distributed, sold, and used in intrastate commerce," so the law did not amount to an effective ban on possession. "This approach led the district court's analysis astray," Elrod wrote. She wrote that the court should have applied the Supreme Court's test in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

Under Bruen, if the Second Amendment's "plain text covers an individual's conduct," the government must show that the law is "consistent with the Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation," both in its reason for burdening the right and in its method.

At the first step, the panel held that switchblades are "arms" in common use. Citing knife histories and a Ninth Circuit dissent from denial of rehearing en banc by Judge Tung, the opinion said spring-blade knives have been made for hundreds of years and that in the 1700s they were part of certain flintlock pistols. "In short, some forms of switchblades have been commonly used for defense for hundreds of years," Elrod wrote. The court also cited a record showing "millions" of automatically opening knives in the country today.

At the second step, the government relied mainly on 19th-century state court decisions upholding laws against carrying concealed weapons, arguing that the nation has long regulated "inherently concealable weapons." The panel said that argument concerned only the law's purpose, which it did not decide. "The government cites no historical analogue that regulates the manufacture, transportation, or distribution of 'inherently concealable weapons,' much less switchblade knives," Elrod wrote.

The government's strongest evidence, the court said, came from a law review article cataloging nearly 200 pre-1900 statutes on daggers, dirks and sword canes. Only two of those laws restricted bladed weapons the way Section 1242 does, an 1837 Georgia law and an 1881 Arkansas law that barred sales of Bowie knives, dirks and sword canes. "Two laws out of nearly two hundred bring us into outlier territory," Elrod wrote, citing Bruen's warning against "endorsing outliers that our ancestors would never have accepted."

The government had argued in the district court that the plaintiffs lacked standing. It no longer disputed the point on appeal, and the panel found standing, noting that the government has brought prosecutions under Section 1242. At oral argument, a government lawyer told the court, "I'm, like, affirmatively telling you we will not, have not, are not disavowing enforcement."

The plaintiffs fared differently on Section 1243. The district court had ruled that they lacked standing to challenge that provision because they could not show a substantial threat of enforcement, especially given the absence of known prosecutions. The panel disagreed, holding that plaintiff Rodney Shedd, who lives on Muscogee Nation land in Tulsa, Oklahoma, faces a credible threat of prosecution because the government would not disavow enforcement.

But the plaintiffs brought only a facial challenge. That required them to "establish that no set of circumstances exists under which the Act would be valid." The government pointed to applications on "certain aircraft, courthouses, federal prisons, embassies, and military bases," and the panel noted that the Supreme Court has treated weapons restrictions in courthouses as settled. "The challengers do not try in earnest to clear this demanding standard," Elrod wrote.

The panel reversed the dismissal of the Section 1242 claim, affirmed the dismissal of the Section 1243 claim and remanded the case to the Northern District of Texas for further proceedings. The plaintiffs, who sued in September 2024, seek a declaration that the provisions are unconstitutional and an injunction barring the Justice Department and Acting Attorney General Todd Wallace Blanche from enforcing the Act.