Massachusetts high court strikes down switchblade ban
Adds detail on ruling, comment from state attorney general in paragraphs 14-16
By Nate Raymond
BOSTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) -Massachusetts' highest court on Tuesday struck down a state ban on carrying switchblades, saying a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling requiring modern gun restrictions to be consistent with the nation's history and tradition covered other weapons too.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that a 1957 law barring people from possessing spring-release pocketknives commonly known as "switchblades" violated the right to keep and bear arms enshrined in the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment.
The court reached that conclusion while dismissing a charge filed against David Canjura for unlawfully possessing a switchblade, which Boston police found when responding to a report of an altercation between Canjura and his girlfriend.
The justices' decision was based on a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that established a new test for assessing whether modern firearm restrictions comply with the Second Amendment by requiring them to be "consistent with this nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation."
The ruling, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, was issued by the Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority and has led to a series of court rulings invalidating modern gun regulations.
The office of Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden, a Democrat, had argued that even after that decision, the Second Amendment's protections only extended to firearms and that knives could not be legally considered "arms."
Seven other states plus the District of Columbia categorically ban switchblades or other automatic knives, while two others impose blade length restrictions of less than two inches.
But Justice Serge Georges, writing for the 5-0 court, said the state was incorrect and that knives, like handguns, fit within the definition of arms as both are weapons that can be used by someone for offensive or defensive purposes during a confrontation.
"The Second Amendment extends to all bearable arms and is not limited to firearms," he wrote.
Georges cited the U.S. Supreme Court's 2016 decision to throw out a ruling by his court upholding a ban on stun guns. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court later in 2018 said the ban violated the Second Amendment.
Georges said the state had failed to identify any laws regulating weapons akin to folding pocketknives in place at the time of the 2nd Amendment'sratification in 1791 or the ratification in 1868 of the 14th Amendment, which extended the Constitution's Bill of Rights to the states.
He said a review of history showed that since the colonial and Revolutionary War era, Americans had used knives for self-defense and that the folding pocketknife "played an important role, both as a tool and a weapon."
"Accordingly, the Commonwealth has not met its burden of demonstrating a historical tradition justifying the regulation of switchblade knives," Georges wrote.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, a Democrat who had filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the switchblade ban, in a statement called the ruling disappointing.
"This case demonstrates the difficult position that the Supreme Court has put our state courts in with the Bruen decision," she said.
Spokespeople for Hayden and Canjura's attorney had no comment.
The case is Commonwealth v. Canjura, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, No. SJC-13432.
For the state: Elisabeth Martino of the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office
For Canjura: Kaitlyn Gerber of the Committee for Public Counsel Services
Read more:
US Supreme Court upholds federal domestic-violence gun ban
U.S. Supreme Court expands gun rights, strikes down New York law
Reporting by Nate Raymond
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