It’s no longer a crime to carry a switchblade in Massachusetts. Here’s why.

“We can reasonably infer that switchblades are weapons in common use today by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.”

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued a decision on Tuesday ruling that a ban on carrying a switchblade knife violates the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment.

Since 1957, a state law has prohibited carrying spring-release knives in Massachusetts. The rule prohibited the possession of “a switch knife, or any knife having an automatic spring release device by which the blade is released from the handle,” with the punishment of up to five years in prison for violating the law.

Tuesday’s ruling stemmed from the 2020 arrest of David E. Canjura. According to the SJC, he was charged with carrying a dangerous weapon when police searched him in response to a call for an altercation between him and his girlfriend and they found an “orange firearm-shaped knife with a spring-assisted blade.” Canjura challenged the constitutionality of the charge against him, arguing the blade was an “arm” and his right to carry for self-defense under the Second Amendment.

In their Tuesday decision, the state’s high court cited two rulings on the Second Amendment by the U.S. Supreme Court, known as Bruen and Heller.

While both rulings were related to guns, The Boston Globe reports that the Supreme Court decisions have resulted in lower courts across the country needing to determine whether present-day laws prohibiting certain weapons would have existed when the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791.

In the Tuesday decision, Justice Serge Georges Jr. wrote that Americans carried small knives, including folding pocketknives, for self-defense, hunting, and trapping in the 17th and 18th centuries.

“Folding pocketknives not only fit within contemporaneous dictionary definitions of arms — which would encompass a broader category of knives that today includes switchblades — but they also were commonly possessed by lawabiding citizens for lawful purposes around the time of the founding,” he wrote. “Setting aside any question whether switchblades are in common use today for lawful purposes, we conclude switchblades are ‘arms’ for Second Amendment purposes. Therefore, the carrying of switchblades is presumptively protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment.”

A request for comment from the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office, which was prosecuting Canjura, was not immediately returned.

In a filing with the SJC, Suffolk District Attorney Kevin R. Hayden pointed to 19th century rulings in other states that listed Bowie knives, dirks, and brass knuckles as dangerous “to the peace and safety of citizens,” according to the Globe.

But in its decision, the SJC disagreed, arguing those mentions were focused on different kinds of bladed weapons, not specifically pocket knives or switchblades.

According to the SJC, Massachusetts was only one of seven states along with the District of Columbia with a full ban on switchblades. Two other states, like Massachusetts, have restrictions on knives based on the blade length.

“From these facts, we can reasonably infer that switchblades are weapons in common use today by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,” the decision reads.

According to the Globe, the SJC also cited Bruen last year when it overturned a conviction for illegal gun possession in a 2019 case.