Switchblades are now legal in Massachusetts.
- Steven Topazio wrote this November 7, 2024 at 4:13 pm
Since 1957, G. L. c. 269, § 10 (b) (§ 10 [b]), has prohibited people from possessing certain spring-release pocketknives, commonly known as “switchblades.” In a recent case, the Supreme Judicial Court was asked to decide whether § 10 (b)’s prohibition against carrying a switchblade knife violated the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, considering the United States Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022) (Bruen).[1] The SJC concluded it does.
COMMONWEALTH vs. DAVID E. CANJURA, SJC-13432 (2024)
Second Amendment analytical framework. The defendant in the Canjura case contended § 10 (b) violated his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms by criminalizing the carrying of a switchblade knife. The court concluded that the defendant’s constitutional claim presented a question of law which it reviewed.
In relevant part, G. L. c. 269, § 10 (b), provides:
“Whoever, except as provided by law, carries on his person, or carries on his person or under his control in a vehicle, any . . . switch knife, or any knife having an automatic spring release device by which the blade is released from the handle, having a blade of over one and one-half inches . . . shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than two and one-half years nor more than five years in the state prison, or for not less than six months nor more than two and one-half years in a jail or house of correction, except that, if the court finds that the defendant has not been previously convicted of a felony, he may be punished by a fine of not more than fifty dollars or by imprisonment for not more than two and one-half years in a jail or house of correction.”
The Second Amendment provides:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
The Supreme Court has concluded the prefatory clause, “[a] well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,” does not mean the right of the people to keep and bear arms depends on service in the militia. See Bruen, 597 U.S. at 20; District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 577, 592 (2008). Rather, the “central component” of the Second Amendment is the “inherent right of self-defense,” which “guarantee[s] to ‘all Americans’ the right to bear commonly used arms in public subject to certain reasonable, well-defined restrictions” (citation omitted). Bruen, supra at 29, 70. See Heller, supra at 581, 599, 628.
While both Heller and Bruen involved handguns, Second Amendment protections subsume more than just firearms. See Caetano v. Massachusetts, 577 U.S. 411, 411-412 (2016) (per curiam) (stun guns constitute arms under Second Amendment). Indeed, “the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.” Heller, 554 U.S. at 582.