Automatic knives just got the same Second Amendment treatment as handguns. On October 21, 2026, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that Section 1242 of the Federal Switchblade Act violates the Second Amendment, reversing a Texas district court that had thrown out the challenge.
In Knife Rights, Inc. v. Blanche, No. 25-10754, Chief Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod, joined by Judges Don Willett and Cory Wilson, laid out the Bruen framework and answered both questions for the challengers. Switchblades are arms under the plain text of the Second Amendment: knives have been carried for defense since the founding, spring-blade knives have been made for centuries because wet, cold, or gloved hands need an easier way to open a pocketknife, and millions of automatic knives are lawfully owned today for utility work, hunting, fishing, and camping. The panel called them arms in common use, then and now.
The government lost on the second step. Even granting that history supports regulating how concealable weapons are carried, the panel found no historical analogue for regulating their manufacture, transportation, or distribution. The government leaned on a law review survey cataloguing nearly 200 pre-1900 statutes on daggers, dirks, and sword canes; the panel found only two that regulated bladed weapons in a comparable way, an 1837 Georgia law and an 1881 Arkansas act, and put that in outlier territory. It also rejected the district court reasoning that the law escaped scrutiny because it left intrastate possession alone, since a knife that cannot lawfully move in commerce is a knife most people cannot lawfully buy. The full opinion is here (PDF).
Section 1242 is the provision that made it a federal crime, punishable by up to $2,000 and five years, to knowingly introduce, manufacture for introduction, transport, or distribute a switchblade knife in interstate commerce. That is the provision the panel struck down, and it remanded the case to the Northern District of Texas for further proceedings. Knife Rights, which brought the case with five individuals and two firearms retailers, called it recognition of what it has argued for years, that the Second Amendment protects knives and not just firearms. Reuters has the summary.
For the trade, the practical effect is that the federal choke point on interstate automatic knife sales is no longer enforceable law in the Fifth Circuit, which covers Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Elsewhere the decision is persuasive but not binding, and the Justice Department rarely keeps enforcing a statute a federal appeals court has held unconstitutional, but a dealer in another circuit is not formally bound by this ruling. Retail policy will vary for a while, and some sellers will keep refusing to ship until their lawyers sign off.
The panel declined to revive the facial challenge to Section 1243, which governs switchblade manufacture, sale, and possession in U.S. territories and Indian country, so that provision stands. State law is untouched, and in several states an automatic knife that is now fine under federal law is still a criminal charge. Carry restrictions are where these fights actually happen, which is why Knife Rights and the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs are suing New Jersey over its knife carry ban right now. Federal permission is not state permission, the same lesson suppressor and short-barreled-rifle buyers have been learning since ATF stopped enforcing NFA registration while states kept their own rules.
Firearms are unaffected. A rifle or handgun bought online still has to ship to a licensed dealer, so if you are ordering a gun alongside that knife, find an FFL dealer in Texas before you buy.
The government has not said whether it will seek en banc review or a Supreme Court petition. The Fifth Circuit is an unfriendly venue for that request, but the federal government gets to ask, and the 1958 Act has survived 68 years. The bigger question is reach. If knives count as arms in common use, older statutes covering batons and other non-firearm arms become easier to attack, and the history-and-tradition method this panel used is the same one now aimed at AR-15 bans, as this look at how courts are using Bruen footnote nine explains.
This is a real win for anyone who has wanted an automatic knife and could not get one shipped, and a reminder that the next fight is at the statehouse. Verify your state and city rules before you order, expect dealers to stay cautious for a few weeks, and do not assume a ruling in New Orleans clears a carry charge in Newark.