This article appeared in Knife Magazine in March 2026.
Know Your Knife Laws – Mailing Guns and Knives – DOJ Memorandum
By Anthony Sculimbrene, Attorney and Knife Expert
The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently released a Memorandum Opinion indicating that the Postal Service should stop enforcing 18 USC 1715, a 1927 law that banned the mailing of firearms. The obvious question is whether this Memorandum Opinion also permits the sale, shipment, and transfer of automatic knives. The answer is not straightforward, but I do think it strongly suggests that it should.
What the Memorandum Opinion Says
Here is the 15-page opinion. First, it recounts what 18 USC 1715 covers. In response to a perceived increase in crime, Congress passed a ban on mailing pistols, revolvers, and other guns that can be concealed on one’s person. The Memorandum Opinion notes that the right to mail things clearly has constitutional import. It notes that U.S. Supreme Court cases have repeatedly held that restrictions on mailing certain items infringe on the First Amendment. The Memorandum Opinion then argues that 18 USC 1715 infringes on the Second Amendment. It noted that, after Bruen, the law faces two distinct problems. First, it makes certain kinds of travel with firearms impossible. Second, it unfairly restricts an individual’s access to firearms.
These problems lead the DOJ to conclude that the law has severe impacts on an individual’s Second Amendment rights, and they then move to the second part of Bruen’s analysis—whether or not there are historical analogs to 18 USC 1715. In their research, the DOJ found a handful of pre-Revolutionary War statutes that restricted the mailing of firearms. They noted that these sources were not particularly relevant. Instead, they leaned more heavily on post-Revolutionary War statutes, of which they could only find one from Tennessee. This lone exemplar was not enough to prove 18 USC 1715 had a historical analog.
Given the dearth of laws, DOJ concluded that, should they attempt to prosecute someone for violating 18 USC 1715, they would lose because the law is unconstitutional in light of Bruen. They then instruct the Postal Service to cease enforcement of 18 USC 1715 and indicate that they will no longer prosecute such offenses.
What it Means
I am not familiar with gun laws to the same extent as I am with knife laws, so I will leave the law’s impact on guns to someone else. What the Memorandum Opinion means for knives is clear—this is one very small step away from DOJ ending the prosecution of violations of the FSA. The U.S. Supreme Court and law from lower courts have now repeatedly held that knives are protected just as much as firearms. If they are, then deeming the ban on shipping concealable guns through the Postal Service unconstitutional should apply to knives. All of the reasoning outlined in the Memorandum Opinion works for knives. The restrictions are similar, the laws are similar, and even the unwarranted moral panic that led to the passage of both laws is similar. It is hard to see why a DOJ that issues this Memorandum Opinion about guns would take a different position on knives.
What it Doesn’t Mean
The Department of Justice cannot change the law. They can set prosecutorial priorities, but they cannot either outright ignore the law or change it. For example, while the Double Jeopardy Clause of the U.S. Constitution bars a prosecutor from charging you with the same offense twice, nothing bars a state prosecutor AND a federal prosecutor from charging you with the same offense. Instead, the DOJ has a policy, the Petite Policy, that usually prohibits this from happening for practical, but not constitutional, reasons. This Memorandum Opinion has the same force and effect as the Petite Policy. Practically, however, it means that 18 USC 1715 is dead. If no one will prosecute violations, the law no longer really bars the conduct.
There are some limitations. While the knife owners of the world think that knives and guns should be treated the same, this policy DOES NOT specifically address the issue of automatic knives. Even though a person prosecuted for a violation of the Federal Switchblade Act (FSA) would likely point to this Memorandum Opinion as a good reason why they should not be prosecuted, nothing in the Opinion REQUIRES DOJ to treat gun owners and knife owners the same. They absolutely should, but law and moral principles (or logic, for that matter) are not interchangeable.
Second, the Opinion itself tells us that this is not their final word on the matter. They make clear they reserve the right to change their mind at any time. When they do so, of course, the law, which never went away, can instantly be enforced against someone (though they could still rely on Bruen just as the Opinion does).
Finally, there is this point—DOJ’s standing in the legal community is at an all-time low. Attrition across the country (and in the federal district where I work) is exceptionally high. They are losing cases they would never fight before, and they are losing fights they always take up for incredibly bad reasons. The dismissals of the cases against James Comey and Letitia James occurred for reasons that even first-year law students understand as illegal conduct on the part of the prosecutor. This is all to say that this opinion, regardless of its reasoning, will likely be viewed as suspect in future years because it was issued by a DOJ that is a shadow of its former self. Put simply—a broken clock might be right twice a day, but there is no time when you would rely on it.
Conclusion
This Memorandum Opinion is unusual. Prosecutors often function on an arrows-in-a-quiver theory—charge a bunch of stuff and see what hits the target. They are not in the business of giving up arrows at the start. Other than political pressure, it is hard to see why the DOJ issued this policy. Nothing in the law required them to do this. But the Memorandum Opinion is unquestionably a good thing for the Second Amendment, and its reasoning applies perfectly to the FSA. Maybe someone at DOJ could just drop a footnote and say the Memo applies to the FSA, too. We have edged ever closer to the end of the FSA.
The American Knife & Tool Institute remains committed to repealing the Federal Switchblade Act, removing restrictions, ambiguity, and confusion about automatic knives, which are valuable tools in our modern daily lives. Visit www.AKTI.org for valuable information on the FSA and state-level knife laws.