9th Circuit upholds California ban on switchblades in California lawsuit

A three-judge panel from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday unanimously affirmed a San Diego judge’s previous ruling that California’s ban on switchblades does not violate the Second Amendment and can remain in place.

California is one of the last remaining states in the country that still bans individuals from carrying automatically opening knives, which are better known as switchblades. The state defines switchblades as knives with blades 2 inches or longer that open automatically by the flick of a button, flip of the wrist, pressure on the handle or by gravity.

The organization Knife Rights and other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in 2023 in San Diego federal court challenging California’s switchblade prohibition. In 2024, U.S. District Judge James Simmons ruled that California’s ban was constitutional, finding that switchblades were not protected by the Second Amendment because they’re dangerous, unusual and not commonly used for self-defense.

While the 9th Circuit judges ultimately came to the same conclusion as Simmons that California’s switchblade ban does not violate the Constitution, they wrote in their opinion that their reasoning differed.

The panel declined to rule on whether switchblades should be considered arms protected by the Second Amendment and ruled instead that California’s prohibition can remain in place because there are a sufficient number of historically similar laws banning other types of knives and bladed weapons.

“Our holding today is narrow: Plaintiffs’ facial challenge fails because they cannot establish that California’s switchblade regulations are unconstitutional in every one of their applications,” the panel wrote.

Attorney John Dillon, who represents Knife Rights and the other plaintiffs, argued that Friday’s ruling misconstrued the law.

“The Ninth Circuit’s decision today is disappointing and contrary to the plain text of the Second Amendment and the clear guidance provided by the Supreme Court,” Dillon said in a statement.

He said that in order to find that California’s switchblade ban is constitutional, the judges “had to rewrite the challenged law, turning it into a ‘concealed carry’ prohibition” that he argued doesn’t actually exist.

“The law bans all possession, all forms of carry, and all sale, purchase, or transfer of switchblades,” Dillon said. “It is not a ‘concealed carry’ law. The Ninth Circuit worked around these undisputed facts and upheld a law that does not exist.”

In a footnote of the opinion, the judges wrote that attorneys in the case “fiercely (debated)” whether California law bans all types of switchblade possession, including “the carrying of a switchblade knife in the home.” The panel concluded that it “need not decide that issue today.” Instead, the judges seemed to focus on portions of the law dealing with public carry and concealed carry of switchblades.

Dillon said the plaintiffs will “seek further judicial review.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, whose office defended the state law, did not respond Friday to a request for comment. When Simmons ruled in favor of the state in August 2024, Bonta’s office said it was pleased with the decision and would “continue to vigorously defend commonsense laws that keep our communities safer.”

California’s ban on switchblades dates back nearly 70 years, when they were viewed — thanks in large part to popular culture — as particularly dangerous and the weapon of choice for menacing street gangs.

But due to recent U.S. Supreme Court precedent, modern-day regulations on guns, switchblades or any other weapons must have even deeper roots. The Supreme Court has ruled that any modern-day weapons regulation must be “rooted in the Second Amendment’s text, as informed by history,” and must be “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

In this case, that meant Bonta’s office had to prove there were centuries-old laws banning certain knives and other weapons similar to switchblades. The 9th Circuit ruled that Bonta’s office successfully cited laws dating back to the 1830s that imposed prohibitions on Bowie knives and other bladed weapons.

“Switchblades are relevantly similar to Bowie knives and other weapons in terms of the concerns they pose to legislatures … and California’s concealed carry prohibition is relevantly similar to the manner in which historical legislatures responded to these concerns,” the 9th Circuit judges wrote in their opinion. “California’s switchblade regulations therefore comport with the principles underpinning the Second Amendment, to the extent that they prohibit the concealed carry of switchblade knives in public places.”

The case was decided by 9th Circuit judges Kim McLane Wardlaw, who authored the opinion, Ronald Gould and Lucy Koh.