Cutting Edge Second Amendment Issue

Ever unafraid to make bad puns, 600Camp reports on the Fifth Circuit’s sharp analysis in Knife Rights, Inc. v. Blanche, which cut down the Federal Switchblade Act’s ban on moving switchblades through interstate commerce, 15 U.S.C. § 1242, as a violation of the Second Amendment. (While no fan of Bruen, this blog’s author supports this application of it, and recommends the Boker Kalashnikov (right) as a reliable and cost-effective option.)

The Court dissected the issue with Bruen‘s two-step framework. At step one, it held that switchblades are “Arms.” It relied on the founding-era definition of arms as “any thing that a man wears for his defence,” along with centuries of history showing that switchblades and their spring-blade predecessors were used for defense.

The government tried to carve out an exception for supply-chain restrictions, arguing that they do not burden the right to keep and bear arms. But that distinction didn’t cut it for the Court, which reasoned that the right to keep and bear arms “surely implies the right to purchase them,” which in turn implies the right to manufacture, transport, and distribute them.

At step two—consistency with historical tradition—the government’s authorities proved to be rather dull. The Court observed that every nineteenth-century case cited by the government regulated the manner of carrying concealed weapons, not their manufacture, transportation, or distribution. The Court concluded by putting a fine point on its analysis, noting that the switchblade ban, like the laws struck down in Heller and Bruen, responded to a “perceived societal problem”—here, a 1950s panic over juvenile delinquency fueled by the popular movie Rebel Without A Cause. No. 25-10754 (Oct. 21, 2026)