A Short History of American Knife Laws: From the Bowie Knife to Bruen

The Short Version

American knife law took its shape in the 1830s, when the Bowie knife set off a wave of new laws, though Kentucky and Louisiana had already banned carrying concealed dirks and knives in 1813. Most states settled on regulating how knives were carried rather than banning them, and that held for a century. In the 1950s, magazine stories and movies turned the switchblade into a symbol of juvenile crime, states began banning automatics, and Congress passed the Federal Switchblade Act in 1958. Since 2010, the direction has reversed: state after state has repealed its switchblade and dagger bans, passed preemption laws that wipe out local knife rules, and, after the Supreme Court's 2022 Bruen decision, courts have started striking bans down under the Second Amendment.

The Bowie Knife Laws of the 1830s

The Bowie knife made its name in the late 1820s and was everywhere in the South and the frontier within a decade, and so were the laws against it. Mississippi and Alabama passed some of the earliest Bowie knife legislation in 1837. Tennessee followed in January 1838 with an act to suppress the sale and use of Bowie knives and Arkansas toothpicks, including carrying them concealed. Georgia went furthest. A statute of December 25, 1837 made it illegal to sell, offer to sell or keep Bowie knives, dirks, sword canes, spears and most pistols, while still allowing knives to be worn openly.

The courts soon weighed in. In Aymette v. State (1840), Tennessee's supreme court upheld that state's concealed carry ban. In Nunn v. State (1846), Georgia's supreme court held that the 1837 act violated the Second Amendment so far as it barred carrying arms openly, and upheld it so far as it barred carrying them concealed. That line, between open and concealed carry, runs through most American knife law to this day.

A Century of Carry Laws

Through the rest of the 1800s, most states treated knives the way they treated pistols. They limited concealed carry, restricted sales to minors and punished misuse harder, rather than banning the knives themselves. Outright sales bans were rare. Arkansas, in 1881, was one of the few states to ban selling Bowie knives along with handguns. The language of those laws, words like dirk, dagger and Bowie knife, survived in many state codes for more than a hundred years, long after anyone could say exactly what separated a dirk from a kitchen knife. Our knife history page covers the knives behind the words.

The Switchblade Panic of the 1950s

Automatic knives had been made in Europe since the 1700s and in American factories since the late 1800s, sold as farm and pocket tools, and issued to paratroopers in World War II. Our history of the switchblade tells that part. What changed in the 1950s was the knife's reputation.

In November 1950, Woman's Home Companion published "The Toy That Kills," an article by Jack Harrison Pollack that blamed switchblades for juvenile crime and gang violence on thin evidence. New York became the first state to ban automatic knives in 1954. Hollywood kept the fear alive with films such as Blackboard Jungle, Rebel Without a Cause and 12 Angry Men, and other states followed New York's lead.

The Federal Switchblade Act of 1958

Congress held hearings with plenty of police anecdotes and very little data. The Department of Justice told Congress it could not recommend the bill and suggested the states regulate knives themselves, and the Commerce Department objected that it ignored the hunters and fishermen who used automatics. Congress passed it anyway, and the Federal Switchblade Act became law on August 12, 1958.

The act did not ban owning an automatic knife in the states. Instead it made it a federal crime to introduce, manufacture for introduction, transport or distribute switchblades in interstate commerce, with a fine of up to $2,000 and five years in prison, and it banned making, selling or possessing them in federal territories, Indian country and places under special federal jurisdiction. It made exceptions for the armed forces, for common carriers and for a person with only one arm carrying a blade of 3 inches or less. Many other countries passed their own switchblade bans in the years after.

Gravity Knives and New York

Federal law and many state laws also covered gravity knives, whose blades open by inertia or gravity. In New York, the gravity knife ban outlived its purpose by decades. Police applied a wrist-flick test: if an officer could flick a folding knife open, it was a gravity knife, and the owner could be charged with a crime for possessing an ordinary folder bought at a hardware store. Because a knife's action loosens with use, the same knife could pass the test one year and fail it the next. Thousands of people were arrested under the law each year.

In March 2019, a federal district judge found the law unconstitutionally vague, and on May 30, 2019, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the bill that removed gravity knives from New York's list of prohibited knives. Switchblades stayed banned in New York, and they still are.

The 2009 Fight Over Assisted Openers

In 2009, U.S. Customs and Border Protection proposed reading the Switchblade Act to cover assisted-opening knives and many one-hand-opening folders, the knives carried by hunters, anglers, farmers and firefighters across the country. Congress stepped in. Senators John Cornyn, Mark Pryor, Ron Wyden and Orrin Hatch led an amendment to the Homeland Security appropriations bill, and it became law on October 28, 2009. It added an exception to the act for a knife with a spring, detent or other mechanism that biases the blade toward closing and needs pressure on the blade to open. That sentence is why assisted openers and most flippers are not switchblades under federal law today.

The Repeal and Preemption Wave

The modern repeal movement started in 2010. New Hampshire repealed its ban on switchblades, dirks and stilettos that year, the first state to do so, and Arizona passed the nation's first knife preemption law, which voids city and county knife rules stricter than state law. Preemption matters because a traveler cannot be expected to know every town's ordinance, and since 2010 many states have followed Arizona.

The repeals kept coming. Texas legalized switchblades in 2013, preempted local knife ordinances in 2015, and in 2017 repealed its list of illegal knives, so blades over 5.5 inches became location-restricted rather than banned. Michigan repealed its switchblade ban when Governor Rick Snyder signed Public Act 96 on July 13, 2017. Ohio passed knife preemption in 2022. Alabama's repeal of its last knife carry statute took effect on January 1, 2023, Pennsylvania's Act 119 took automatic knives off the state's prohibited list the next day, and Virginia dropped switchblades from its concealed carry statute in July 2023. Hawaii repealed its switchblade and butterfly knife bans in 2024, Louisiana's statewide preemption took effect that August, and in 2025 Vermont and Delaware repealed their switchblade bans. Our Knife Law Watch page keeps the running list.

Bruen and the Courts

The biggest change of the last few years came from a gun case. In New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, decided June 23, 2022, the Supreme Court held that a law limiting the right to keep and bear arms has to fit the nation's historical tradition of regulation. Knives are arms, and the Bowie knife laws of the 1830s, mostly about carry rather than ownership, have turned into evidence in courtrooms.

In August 2024, in Commonwealth v. Canjura, Massachusetts' highest court struck down the state's ban on carrying switchblades under the Second Amendment. Not every court agrees. The Ninth Circuit upheld California's 2-inch limit on carrying automatics and declined to rehear the case in July 2026. On October 21, 2026, the Fifth Circuit went the other way on federal law, holding in Knife Rights v. Blanche that Section 1242 of the Switchblade Act, the interstate part, violates the Second Amendment. Our post on the Fifth Circuit ruling explains what it does and does not change. Challenges to the switchblade bans in New Jersey and Minnesota are still pending, and when federal appeals courts split on the same question, the Supreme Court takes notice.

What the History Means for You

Every knife law on the books today was written in one of these moments, which is why a knife can be legal to own and carry in one state, legal to own but not carry in the next, and banned outright across the river. The trend for the last fifteen years has run one way, toward fewer bans and more preemption, but the law where you stand is still the law that counts. Check your state in our Knife Laws by State guide, read how we research knife laws, and if you travel with a knife, see our guide to traveling with a knife.

This guide explains the law in general terms. It isn't legal advice. If you have a question about your own situation, talk to a lawyer in your state.