Massachusetts' highest court rules that switchblades are protected under Second Amendment

The Supreme Judicial Court slashed at a state law banning switchblades, agreeing with a Boston defendant’s argument that such knives are protected by the Second Amendment.

“The Commonwealth contends knives categorically are not protected by the Second Amendment because the definition of arms is limited to firearms. The Commonwealth is incorrect,” SJC Justice Serge Georges Jr. wrote in the ruling, “the Second Amendment extends to all bearable arms and is not limited to firearms.”

The extended effect of the ruling, if any, was not immediately clear. The Suffolk DA, which prosecuted the original case of carrying a dangerous weapon, argued against dismissal before the SJC. The DA had no further comment beyond the case filings, a spokesman said.

Massachusetts AG Andrea Campbell said in a statement that she is “disappointed in today’s result,” adding that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, that carrying a pistol in public was a constitutional right, put state courts “in a difficult position.”

“The fact is that switchblade knives are dangerous weapons, and the Legislature made a commonsense decision to pass a law prohibiting people from carrying them. My office will continue to work at the State House and in court to ensure and enforce the laws that keep us safe in order to protect the people of Massachusetts,” she added.

Suffolk Assistant District Attorney David McGowan argued that “knives are not arms for the purpose of the Second Amendment, switchblades are not the sort of weapon used by law abiding citizens in self-defense, and the regulation of possession of specific classes of dangerous knives is a longstanding practice,” in a brief to the court.

The high court disagreed.

The SJC was further unmoved by arguments that such knives lack a historical precedence for self defense and that they are uniquely dangerous.

Georges wrote that pocket knives, including the folding variety, “were ubiquitous among colonists” at and before the writing of the Bill of Rights.

Georges also concluded that “In the most basic sense, all weapons are ‘dangerous’ because they are designed for the purpose of bodily assault or defense. … As such, general dangerousness of a weapon is irrelevant where the weapon belongs to a class of arms commonly used for self defense.”

The case began with the arrest of David Canjura at around 4 a.m. on July 3, 2021, in Temple Place in Boston, where the defendant was in some kind of altercation with his girlfriend. Police searched Canjura and found a switchblade — a spring-loaded pocket knife — and arrested him both on carrying a dangerous weapon and assault and battery on a family or household member.

Prosecutors dropped the assault charge but carried on with the dangerous weapon charge, according to the SJC summary of the case. Canjura’s lawyers conceded that the knife was a switchblade, which is prohibited under state law, but argued that the state law is wrong as the knife is an “arm,” and thus protected under the Second Amendment.

Canjura filed a motion to dismiss the charge on that reasoning, but Boston Municipal Court Judge James M. Stanton was not swayed. He accepted Canjura’s admission to sufficient facts for a finding of guilt and placed him on probation for six months, allowing Canjura to appeal.

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