First body armor, now knives; the Second Amendment wins are really coming in this week. In the latest, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a federal law restricting the interstate manufacture, transportation, and distribution of switchblade knives is in violation of the Second Amendment.
It's an interesting finding with a couple of key points.
NEW: The Fifth Circuit ruled that a federal law restricting the interstate manufacture, transportation, and distribution of switchblade knives violates the Second Amendment, holding that switchblades are constitutionally protected arms. https://t.co/Aig34RnGDz
— SCOTUS Wire (@scotus_wire) October 22, 2026
First, the court's decision states in part:
We determine that switchblade knives qualify as “Arms” and are covered by the “plain text” of the Second Amendment. Because the regulation implicates the amendment, the government bears the burden of establishing that the FSA comports with well-established principles of the Second Amendment and its regulatory tradition. The government fails to meet its burden.
So, the Second Amendment doesn't apply to just firearms; we have seen, in recent weeks, courts apply the definition of "arms" to suppressors, and more recently, to body armor. Now the 5th has applied to knives, specifically, switchblade knives, or folding knives that snap open quickly via a concealed spring.
Then, there's this tidbit:
Finally, we assess whether the FSA regulates the right to “keep and bear” arms. Heller clarified that the phrase “keep arms” means “to have weapons,” and “bear arms” commonly meant “the carrying of weapons outside of an organized militia.” 554 U.S. at 582, 584. 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.
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. 127 F.4th at 587. We acknowledged that the “words ‘purchase,’ ‘sale,’ or similar terms describing a transaction do not appear in the Second Amendment.” Id. at 589–90. But they are implied, see Luis v. United States, 578 U.S. 5, 26 (2016) (Thomas, J., concurring), because the right to keep and bear arms “wouldn’t mean much” “without the corresponding right to acquire” them, Ezell, 651 F.3d at 704; see also Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 96 (2012) (“[W]hen a text authorizes a certain act, it implicitly authorizes whatever is a necessary predicate of that act.”).
Now this is interesting indeed. The "interstate commerce" angle is examined, and the 5th seems to have found that the "keep" in "keep and bear" also implies a right to "purchase," even though it's not explicitly stated in the Second Amendment. The court cites another decision and notes that the right to keep and bear arms "wouldn't mean much" without the right to acquire them. That seems like ordinary good sense, but good sense isn't always a requirement in court cases, it seems.
What's noteworthy about this and other cases we've reported on recently is how the definition of "arms" is expanding, as noted above, first to suppressors, now to body armor and knives. The implications of the Bruen decision, which always seems to be mentioned in decisions like this, are far-reaching, and we are seeing the left's assertions about the Second Amendment being whittled away, more and more, day by day, by these decisions.
It's a good time to be on the side of the Second Amendment.