by Harold Hutchison
A federal appeals court threw out a federal ban on switchblades, saying the measure violated the Second Amendment.
A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, consisting of a George W. Bush appointee and two Trump appointees, issued the decision in Knife Rights v. Blanche Wednesday. The panel found that one of two challenged provisions was unconstitutional but allowed the other to stand on technical grounds.
“The question, then, is whether this right to have and carry weapons extends to the procurement of weapons such that it would implicate §1242’s prohibition on the introduction, manufacture, transportation, or distribution of switchblades into interstate commerce,” Chief United States Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in the opinion. “We conclude that it does. In Reese v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, we considered whether a statute, which proscribed selling firearms or ammunition ‘to any individual who the licensee knows or has reasonable cause to believe is less than twenty-one years of age,’ implicated that right.”
“We acknowledged that the ‘words ‘purchase,’ ‘sale,’ or similar terms describing a transaction do not appear in the Second Amendment,” Elrod continued. “But they are implied because the right to keep and bear arms ‘wouldn’t mean much’ ‘without the corresponding right to acquire’ them.”
The Federal Switchblade Act (FSA) was enacted by Congress in 1958, three years after switchblades were prominently featured in the 1955 movie “Rebel Without a Cause,” starring James Dean.
The measure, which barred the introduction, manufacture for introduction, transportation, or distribution of switchblades in interstate commerce, followed years of state-level restrictions and earlier unsuccessful federal efforts, including a 1954 proposal by Rep. James J. Delaney (D-NY-07) and a 1957 bill by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN).
Kefauver, who chaired Senate hearings examining juvenile delinquency, and other backers cited rising arrests of minors for possession of dangerous weapons and portrayed automatic knives as tools favored by teenage gangs. The Eisenhower Justice Department, under Attorney General William Rogers, declined to recommend the legislation, arguing that switchblades served legitimate uses for sportsmen and others and that regulation was better left to the states.
Prior to passage of the FSA, as many as 1.2 million switchblades were being produced or imported into the United States, according to the opinion.
The Democrat majorities in both chambers passed H.R. 12850 on a voice vote; the congressional records show it advanced without recorded opposition after committee consideration and limited floor debate. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, signed the bill into law. Contemporary accounts purport the restrictions enjoyed broad support as a symbolic response to youth crime concerns, even as some lawmakers and administration officials questioned their practical impact.
“The government’s not-in-common-use argument fails,” Elrod wrote. “In addition to the wealth of history indicating the founding-era uses of switchblades for defense, the record indicates that there are ‘millions’ of automatically opening knives in the United States now.”
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Harold Hutchison is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation. Executive Editor of The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network Christina Botteri contributed to this report.
