Despite the Second Amendment referencing “arms,” the Pam Bondi Justice Department is arguing that “automatic switchblades like those regulated by the Federal Switchblade Act are not entitled to Second Amendment protection.”
This is the latest move from a bifurcated Justice Department that, on the one hand has established the Second Amendment Section under its Civil Rights Division to promote the preservation of 2A rights, and on the other hand continues to undermine 2A rights and promote gun control, such as the DOJ move to defend the NFA.
The DOJ’s December 22 brief in Knife Rights v. Bondi, which is penned by Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate, goes beyond what is logical or reasonable:
And Congress has properly determined – in a conclusion that parallels similar legislative conclusions throughout our Nation’s history – that the concealable nature of a switchblade makes it particularly susceptible to criminal misuse and, thus, a proper subject of regulation.
(Shumate also signed the United States’ brief opposing a request by gun rights groups to the Supreme Court to hear a case challenging the federal minimum age of 21 for licensed dealers to sell handguns, in October 2025.)
This defense ignores that 29 states currently allow some form of permitless carry of a firearm, which individuals most often carry concealed. Firearms are arguably just as dangerous as knives, if not more so, given their standoff capabilities and effectiveness even in the hands of the untrained.
Much like its argument against short-barreled rifles, the DOJ argues against the concealability of this particular class of knives, which were regulated under the Federal Switchblade Act of 1958 (amended in 2009), insisting “…that the concealable nature of a switchblade makes it particularly susceptible to criminal misuse and, thus, a proper subject of regulation.” Never mind that there are literally thousands of pocket knives that are similarly and equally concealable.
The Bondi DOJ is pitting itself against the Constitution, common sense, and even some recent court decisions that have agreed that knives are indeed arms protected by the Second Amendment.
For example, in August of 2023, a three-judge panel in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that a Hawaii law banning butterfly knives violated the Second Amendment.
In that same year, Hawaii Governor Josh Green signed HB2342 into law, repealing the state’s bans on butterfly knives, along with switchblades, gravity knives, and even swords and spears.
In August of 2024, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects switchblades as “bearable arms,” striking down a statewide ban in place for 67 years.
As is often the case, when the DOJ argues for the restriction of a type of arm, they frame it from the perspective that it isn’t burdensome because there are other arms an individual can own that are less restricted – a defense that seems to be applied to only one of the many enumerated civil liberties:
The statute does not reach knives with other configurations or modes of operation – including fixed-blade knives and folding knives that must be opened manually – but instead applies only to the narrow subset of concealable knives that Congress determined were particularly dangerous.
Plaintiff’s attorney John Dillon said, “It is genuinely absurd for the current administration to claim they support the Second Amendment while at the same time it argues in federal court that switchblades (a mere variation of a common pocket knife) – and a weapon the government admits are arms under the Second Amendment’s plain text – are not entitled to any protection under the Second Amendment. Any objective and proper application of the Heller/Bruen standard is determined in favor of Plaintiffs in this case.”
