Massachusetts residents are now allowed to arm themselves with butterfly knives after a 67-year-old restriction was repealed following a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling milestone decision on gun rights and the Second Amendment.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling Tuesday applied new guidelines from the Bruen decision, which declared that citizens have the right to carry firearms in public. for self-defenseThe Supreme Court concluded that butterfly knives do not merit special restrictions under the Second Amendment.
“Nothing in the physical qualities of butterfly knives indicates that they are uniquely dangerous,” wrote Judge Serge Georges Jr.
There are now only a few states where butterfly knives are banned.
The case stemmed from a 2020 domestic disturbance in which police seized an orange, spring-loaded, firearm-shaped knife. The suspect was charged with carrying a dangerous weapon.
In his appeal, he argued that the knife was protected by the Second Amendment.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court examined the history of knives and pocketknives dating back to colonial times, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s guidance in focusing on whether gun restrictions are consistent with this country’s “historical tradition” of gun regulation.
Georges concluded that the broad category including spring-loaded knives are “weapons” under the Second Amendment. “Therefore, carrying butterfly knives is presumptively protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment,” he wrote.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell criticized the ruling.
“This case highlights the difficult position the Supreme Court has placed our state courts in with the Bruen decision, and I am disappointed with today’s outcome,” Campbell said in a statement. “The fact is, butterfly knives are dangerous weapons and the Legislature made a wise decision to pass a law banning people from carrying them.
The Bruen ruling has upended gun and firearms laws across the country. In Hawaii, a federal court ruling applied Bruen to the state ban on butterfly knives and found it unconstitutional. That case is still pending.
In California, a federal judge has invalidated a state law banning the possession of bludgeon-like weapons, reversing his previous ruling three years ago that upheld a ban on batons and similar blunt instruments. The judge ruled that the ban “unconstitutionally infringes on the Second Amendment rights of American citizens.”
In its ruling, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court also cited a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held that Americans have the right to own guns for self-defense in their own homes.