Today, in the decision Caetano v. Mass., the Supreme Court decided that the 2nd Amendment protects ownership of weapons that are not firearms, in this case an electric "stun gun" type weapon. Massachusetts law barred private ownership of such weapons. in a per curiam decision (a brief order that is not authored by any one Justice, usually reserved for an obvious or non-controversial decision) the Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Mass. Supreme Court that found such a ban was constitutional under the 2nd Amendment. The Mass. court based its decision on the fact that electric weapons did not exist when the US Constitution was written. The US Supreme Court advised that that was not the correct test for whether a weapon was covered by the 2nd Amendment. Further the Court said that the exclusion for "dangerous and unusual" weapons found in the Heller decision does not include stun guns. Finally, the Court overruled the Mass. court requirement that a weapon has to be suitable for military use to be protected by the 2nd Amendment. In a concurrence Justices Alito and Thomas wrote forcefully about lower courts "defying" Heller in their decisions limiting the scope of 2nd Amendment protections. http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions...10078_aplc.pdf

I have been thinking about the Colorado law that bars private ownership of switchblade knives and gravity knives, and think it is also unconstitutional under the 2nd Amendment. This decision lends weight to that argument. In Nov 2015 the Winsconsin Court of Appeals decided in State v. Hermann, that the Wisconsin ban on switchblade knives violated the right to keep and bear arms. That issue did not go further because Wisconsin subsequently repealed its law.