Massachusetts’ highest court struck down a state ban on carrying switchblades on Tuesday, ruling that the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision requiring modern gun restrictions to align with the nation’s history and tradition also applies to other weapons. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court determined that a 1957 law prohibiting the possession of spring-release pocketknives, commonly known as “switchblades,” violated the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms.
The court made this decision while dismissing a charge against David Canjura, who was accused of unlawfully possessing a switchblade that Boston police discovered while responding to a report of an altercation between Canjura and his girlfriend. The justices based their ruling on a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which established a new standard for evaluating whether modern firearm restrictions comply with the Second Amendment. This standard requires such regulations to be consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
The ruling in Bruen, issued by the Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority, has led to multiple court decisions invalidating contemporary gun regulations. Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden’s office argued that, despite the Bruen decision, the Second Amendment’s protections were limited to firearms and did not extend to knives, which they claimed could not be legally considered “arms.”
However, Justice Serge Georges, writing for the unanimous 5-0 court, disagreed. He stated that knives, like handguns, fall within the definition of arms, as both are weapons that can be used offensively or defensively during a confrontation. “The Second Amendment extends to all bearable arms and is not limited to firearms,” Georges wrote.
Justice Georges referenced the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2016 decision that overturned a ruling by the Massachusetts court upholding a ban on stun guns. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court later concluded in 2018 that the ban on stun guns violated the Second Amendment. Georges noted that the state had failed to present any historical laws regulating weapons similar to folding pocketknives at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification in 1791 or the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification in 1868, which extended the Bill of Rights to the states. He highlighted that since the colonial and Revolutionary War era, Americans have used knives for self-defense, and the folding pocketknife “played an important role, both as a tool and a weapon.”
“Accordingly,” Georges wrote, “the Commonwealth has not met its burden of demonstrating a historical tradition justifying the regulation of switchblade knives.”
The state could potentially appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. A spokesperson for Hayden did not respond to a request for comment, and a representative for Canjura’s attorney also had no immediate comment.
The case is Commonwealth v. Canjura, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, No. SJC-13432.
Representing the state was Elisabeth Martino of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, and Kaitlyn Gerber of the Committee for Public Counsel Services represented Canjura.
