Summary
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment for California in a facial Second Amendment challenge to California’s switchblade regulations. The panel assumed without deciding that the Second Amendment covered the plaintiffs’ proposed conduct and held that the prohibition on concealed public carrying of switchblade knives was consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of arms regulation. The court limited its holding to the facial challenge and expressed no view on the constitutionality of other conduct regulated by the statutes.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether California's switchblade regulations facially violate the Second Amendment.
- Whether, under the Second Amendment framework established by New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen and United States v. Rahimi, California's prohibition on the concealed public carry of covered switchblade knives is consistent with the Nation's historical tradition of arms regulation.
- What standard applies to plaintiffs' facial challenge and whether the constitutionality of some applications is sufficient to defeat the facial challenge.
Holdings
- Plaintiffs' facial challenge fails because they cannot establish that California's switchblade regulations are unconstitutional in every application.
- Historical analogues need only be relevantly similar in terms of how and why they burden the Second Amendment right; the government need not identify a dead ringer or historical twin.
- California's prohibition on the concealed carrying of covered switchblade knives in public is consistent with the Second Amendment.
Key quotations
“Our holding today is narrow: Plaintiffs’ facial challenge fails because they cannot establish that California’s switchblade regulations are unconstitutional in every one of their applications.” (18)
“The State need only proffer “relevantly similar” historical analogues, and the Supreme Court has explicitly recognized that “the Constitution can, and must, apply to circumstances beyond those the founders specifically anticipated,” including “modern instruments that facilitate armed self-defense.”” (22)
“Switchblades are relevantly similar to Bowie knives and other weapons in terms of the concerns they pose to legislatures (the “why”), and California’s concealed carry prohibition is relevantly similar to the manner in which historical legislatures responded to these concerns (the “how”).” (30)
Factual background
California regulates switchblade knives with blades two or more inches long through provisions governing possession in a vehicle, carrying, sale, transfer, surrender, and destruction. The regulations were originally adopted in 1957 after switchblades became associated with criminal activity and were later reorganized without substantive change. Plaintiffs included an organization, individuals seeking to keep and bear switchblades, and two retailers of bladed weapons. The appeal focused on California Penal Code section 21510(b), which prohibits carrying covered switchblades on one's person, including concealed carrying in public.
Procedural history
Plaintiffs challenged various California Penal Code provisions regulating the possession, carry, sale, transfer, surrender, and destruction of covered switchblade knives. After discovery, the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The district court granted summary judgment to the State, reasoning that switchblades were not protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment and alternatively concluding that California had not established sufficient historical analogues. The Ninth Circuit affirmed on different grounds, holding that plaintiffs could not show that the regulations were unconstitutional in all applications.