Following the en banc Third Circuit’s landmark ruling that New Jersey’s “assault firearm” ban and its ban on magazines holding more than ten rounds both violate the Second Amendment Knife Rights has filed Notices of Supplemental Authority under Rule 28(j) in our Second Amendment challenges to the Federal Switchblade Act and Minnesota’s total ban on switchblades. That opinion lays out and applies the law as to arms bans perfectly, supporting Knife Rights’ arguments in its Second Amendment cases.
Written by Biden appointee Judge Arianna Freeman, the 10-5 opinion correctly applied the text-and-history test set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in NYSRPA v. Bruen.
Beginning with the Second Amendment’s text, the court concluded that both semiautomatic firearms and magazines qualify as “Arms” protected by the Second Amendment: semiautomatic firearms because they are firearms, and magazines because they are necessary to operate many firearms. Likewise, knives and switchblades are undeniably “Arms” under the Second Amendment’s plain text.
Turning to the historical analysis, the court determined that both “assault firearms” and magazines holding more than ten rounds are “in common use,” noting that Americans lawfully possess at least 24 million AR-platform rifles and more than 100 million 30-round magazines. Because these arms are commonly owned and, as the Supreme Court held in Heller, there is no historical tradition that supports banning arms in common use, the Third Circuit held that New Jersey’s bans violate the Second Amendment. The same applies to knives in general and switchblades specifically.
Following on the heels of the Ninth Circuit’s badly flawed denial of rehearing en banc in our California challenge to the state’s switchblade ban with its accompanying dissents and the U.S. Supreme Court’s grant of certiorari in two AR-15 ban cases, this would seem to bode well for Knife Right’ Second Amendment challenges to knife bans going forward.