It’s “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
The term “arms” is a broad category of pretty much anything that can be used as a weapon, but especially as our Founding Fathers understood them. From spontoons to artillery, the battlefield of 250 years ago was pretty strange to modern eyes. Rifles were there, which we understand, but swords were still commonly used as well. The arms of the Revolutionary War era were a lot of things.
So you can imagine my feelings when I found out that among the Second Amendment sins we’re getting from the Department of Justice is a new claim that switchblades aren’t covered by the right to keep and bear arms.
The Second Amendment protects the ownership of AR-15s and the concealed carrying of handguns, but it does not protect owning or carrying switchblade knives.
At least that’s the position the Department of Justice (DOJ) has taken in legal filings across the country in recent days. On the same day it filed a first-of-its-kind DOJ suit challenging Washington DC’s “assault weapons“ ban, it separately filed an appellee’s brief in a case before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the Federal Switchblade Act. In the brief, the DOJ urged the court to uphold the federal ban because “automatic switchblades“ are “well-suited to criminal misuse“ and are “not protected by the Second Amendment.“
“Congress’s limited regulation of inherently concealed knives is amply supported by two distinct, through interrelated, historical principles,” the DOJ wrote in Knife Rights v. Bondi. “The weight of historical authority demonstrates that those prohibitions and regulations comport with the Second Amendment, because there is no constitutional right to carry concealed or inherently concealable weapons.”
The filing underscores the extent to which the Justice Department under the second Trump Administration has been marked by inconsistency in its position on various weapons restrictions. Under a presidential directive to protect Second Amendment rights, the DOJ has reserved its most vigorous advocacy for blue states and territories. Meanwhile, it has continuously defended federal laws against Second Amendment challenges, even when it irks its allies in the gun-rights movement.
Knife Rights, Inc., the group challenging the law, blasted the Justice Department’s latest filing.
“Instead of a stocking filled with joy, Trump’s Department of Justice dumped coal in Knife Rights’ stocking with their disappointing response brief continuing their Biden-like anti-Second Amendment stance defending the unconstitutional Federal Switchblade Act,” Doug Ritter, the group’s chairman, told The Reload. “Despite the administration’s lukewarm Second Amendment support in some firearms cases, Trump’s DOJ still hasn’t got the memo that ‘shall not be infringed’ means exactly that.”
I honestly find that argument from the DOJ very problematic, because it’s essentially arguing an anti-gun point in saying that carrying concealed isn’t protected by the Second Amendment at all. Sure, this context is about switchblades, which are the “inherently concealable” weapons in question, but they didn’t limit it to just that. They said concealable weapons, too, which include your Glock 19 or other daily carry weapon.
In short, while the Supreme Court ruled that concealed carry fell under the Second Amendment in Bruen, the DOJ is saying otherwise here.
[Editor’s Note: SCOTUS didn’t specifically uphold the right to carry a concealed firearm in Bruen. Instead, it upheld the “right to keep and bear arms in public for self-defense.” And in Heller, the majority opinion noted “the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues.” Those states, however allowed the open carry of firearms. So, while it’s not really accurate to say the Supreme Court has ruled that concealed carry is protected by the Second Amendment, it is fair to say that states and the federal government must recognize the right to carry in general. A state could theoretically require open carry while prohibiting concealed carry (or vice versa), but must allow the bearing of arms in some fashion.]
Now, some of these knives are favored by criminals; they’re not the exclusive domain of bad guys by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve used automatic knives when I’ve been in environments where one hand would be occupied, but I’d need to cut something. Pushing a button to deploy the blade is handy in those situations.
But even if that weren’t true, it doesn’t matter. The Second Amendment covers all arms, and yeah, “shall not be infringed” is right there. It doesn’t go away because we’re talking about a pocket knife that opens quickly. Especially since I actually can open most of my knives just as quickly, even without the automatic feature.
The idea that these are super common in crime seems to stem from watching too many greaser movies set in the 1950s. Sure, the dudes riding motorcycles and wearing leather jackets seemed to like them plenty in those, but there’s literally no reason for this to be taken as a serious threat today.
Again, though, even if it were, it’s irrelevant because of the Second Amendment.
The right to keep and bear arms includes all arms, even those the government doesn’t really like.
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