This article appeared in Knife Magazine in October 2025
Know Your Knife Laws – Hawaii Without an FSA
By Anthony Sculimbrene, Attorney and Knife Expert
Much like its geographic origins, Hawaiian law on automatic knives has been both explosive and ever-changing. Hawaii’s state Supreme Court is the only court so far to consider a Bruen claim on the merits and reject it outright. It is also the only state where the legislature changed the law during litigation to preclude a federal case. The result is a confusing mess. If you take nothing else from this article, it should be this: You need to talk to a Hawaiian lawyer before carrying an automatic knife.
As a brief reminder, this three-part series looks at what would happen in various states if the Federal Switchblade Act of 1958 (FSA) was repealed. In states where automatic knives are legal, repeal of the FSA would allow people in those states to buy and sell them via interstate commerce, which, coincidentally, includes transactions over the Internet. In states where state law prohibits carrying automatic knives, repeal of the FSA would do very little, as the U.S. is a dual sovereign system. To be legal, something must be legal under both state and federal law. Repeal of the FSA only changes federal law, and therefore, such a repeal would not alter the legal status of automatic knives in states with a ban. Fortunately, that list is short and has actually gotten shorter since last month, as the governor of Delaware signed into law a statute allowing for the carry of automatic knives. The last state we are looking at is Hawaii. And boy is it complicated.
Legally speaking, Hawaii has always been a comparatively left-leaning state in terms of laws and court rulings. Similarly, the 9th Circuit, the federal court of appeals circuit for Hawaii, has always been more left-leaning. This has resulted in two really interesting cases – Teter v. Lopez and State v. Wilson. These cases, taken together, make predicting the state of Hawaiian law as it applies to automatic knives very, very difficult.
In Teter, like in Knife Rights v. Garland, a group of knife owners sought permission from the federal court to own balisongs (butterfly knives). They wanted the federal court to enjoin, or bar, local law enforcement from enforcing Hawaiian state law that barred possession of balisong knives (and automatic knives). They prevailed in the federal district court. The state of Hawaii appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Then, in a strange move, the Hawaiian legislature amended the law and made balisongs legal to carry. The Hawaiian government lawyer then argued that the change in law made the knife owner’s lawsuit moot. The Ninth Circuit agreed, and the federal district court ruling, based on Bruen, was vacated.
In Wilson, the matter was procedurally different, but knife laws were still the issue. This case was decided in a State court. Again, the issue was whether Bruen invalidated Hawaiian weapons laws. If you are keeping a tally at home, Bruen’s win-loss record in state courts has been impressive–100% of states considering Bruen have ruled that it did invalidate state weapon laws. The Hawaiian Supreme Court broke that streak. It held that since Heller and Bruen, new evidence has surfaced that shows definitively that the language used in the Second Amendment does not confer an individual right to own a firearm. It wrote:
Until Heller, the Supreme Court had never ruled that the Second Amendment afforded an individual right to keep and bear arms. Because the Second Amendment provided a collective right, most states conferred an individual right through their constitutions. Federalism principles allow states to provide broader constitutional protections to their people than the federal constitution. Hawaii chose to use civic-minded language. Article I, section 17 [of the Hawaiian State Constitution] textually cements the right to bear arms to a well regulated militia. Its words confer a right to “keep and bear arms” only in the context of a “well regulated militia.” Article 1, Section 17 traces the language of the Second Amendment. Those words do not support a right to possess lethal weapons in public for self-defense.
In short, in Hawaii, Heller is not good law; therefore, Bruen cannot be good law. Without Heller and Bruen, the problem for knife owners is that all carry rights are attached, not to the comparatively immutable state Constitution, but to state statute that can (and has been) changed at a whim.
What does this mean for knife owners in Hawaii if the FSA falls? For now, based on the statutory changes related to Teter, butterfly knives are legal. Hawaiian law also makes automatic knives legal to own. Carrying them concealed (noting there is no definition of concealed carry in the statute) is still illegal. This means that the FSA’s repeal would make it legal to own an automatic knife, but carrying it is still problematic. When this lack of clarity in the statute is coupled with the fact that the state constitution does not provide a right to carry and the Hawaiian Supreme Court has rejected Bruen, there is a real concern about carrying an automatic, both now and if the FSA were to be repealed. Finally, because of how the Hawaiian Supreme Court interpreted the state constitution, we are unlikely to have more clarity on this in the future–only a U.S. Supreme Court case would definitively overrule Wilson.
For more information about the referenced court cases, visit the Know Your Knife Laws section and search for the case.