This article appeared in Knife Magazine in September 2026.
Know Your Knife Laws – Minnesota Update
By Anthony Sculimbrene, Attorney and Knife Expert
Earlier this year, I wrote about the federal case challenging Minnesota’s auto knife ban. The case was argued on April 24, 2026, and it has yet to be decided. Given how long a period of time that was, I decided to look in on the case and figure out what was going on. The article in the June issue described the legal battle. Still, the summary is this: Minnesota’s auto knife ban was challenged by Knife Rights, and the Attorney General (AG), Keith Ellison, through his subordinates, put on a full-throated objection. This was so unusual because, since Bruen and Canjura, no one other than Minnesota has fought a pitched battle. But here we are. And looking at the docket report, it is clear the AG is not phoning this one in despite the incredibly long odds against him. In fact, he doubled down on his position, sending the judge a letter with additional legal cases.
In the update, Michael Goodwin, the lawyer arguing the case for the AG, notes two cases: Knife Rights v. Bonta, a 2026 case argued at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and Barnett v. Raoul, an Illinois case also from 2026. Both cases, the Minnesota AG claims, support their position–that the Knife Rights challenge should fail.
Bonta is a particularly unusual case because of the clearly contentious disagreement among the judges. The majority opinion held that the facial challenge Knife Rights tried failed, largely because a facial challenge in a civil case is exceptionally hard to win. The dissent, which, frankly, was the most embarrassing and immature legal writing I have ever seen, strongly disagreed. They basically pointed out that the 9th Circuit ALWAYS decides against 2A proponents because of its historically liberal bent (which is true). The thing that crossed all lines of decorum was the especially personal attack on other 9th Circuit judges, including one, as the majority noted, who was dead.
Barnett was the more interesting inclusion. In this case, again, a civil one, the parties challenged Illinois’s ban on high-capacity magazines and relied on the historical tradition analysis in Bruen. The 7th Circuit rejected that argument, pointing out a long history of laws limiting the capacity and capabilities of firearms. What is so surprising about the conclusion here is that the 7th Circuit modeled the Bruen analysis perfectly but reached the opposite conclusion from the US Supreme Court.
These objections point to a serious flaw in the Bruen logic, one that echoes the failed logic of another landmark US Supreme Court case–Roe v. Wade. Justice Clarence Thomas and his ilk’s reliance on historical analysis is pointless. The late Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito place great weight on history to inform us what laws in the past meant, or what the drafters of those laws intended. But this conception of history–as a single super narrative–is something that historians have always known is untrue. It’s not simply the fact that history is written by the winners, but that even among those in the privileged position to write history, there are fractures, disagreements, and differences. Scalia, Thomas, and Alito presuppose that consulting history will relieve them of the whimsy they saw in prior Supreme Courts where “interpretation” became “personal opinion.” But this is wrong. All they have is a different shell to use in their logical shell game. Now, as these cases clearly demonstrate, instead of interpretation, we have history. Instead of personal opinion, we get judges choosing or prioritizing the strands and narratives of history they prefer. It’s still whimsy, just with a different logical vehicle.
The problem is compounded in the legal arena, especially in a federalist country with 51 different legal histories and traditions. In the Bruen analysis, we don’t get instructions on how to choose which history or tradition to listen to or hold as binding. If we look at early laws in Pennsylvania, founded by noted Quaker William Penn, we get a pacifist history. If we prioritize Hawaii, we have a Polynesian history where there is very little in the way of a historical tradition regarding firearms. Why? Because firearms were very late on the scene, arriving for the first time in 1778 when James Cook brought them. There is no one history, no one tradition, no one way to conceive of what the drafters of laws in the past thought the law meant, any more than we have agreements among lawmakers today.
So will the two new cases matter in Minnesota? I don’t think so. The oral argument clearly indicated that the Court was leaning in one direction. But here is the problem. Bruen’s historical traditions test is so malleable, so formless, that in the end it’s not the law that matters, but the judge. And that is not a rule of law at all. Bruen’s logic will crumble eventually, just like the logic in Roe did. 2A proponents should work now to develop other reasons for Second Amendment rights beyond the historical tradition analysis. Otherwise, Second Amendment rights could go the way of the dodo and Pro Choice.
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