Bowie knives are back in constitutional law news these days, after a very long absence. The U.S. Supreme Court's Bruen decision instructs lower courts to look to U.S. legal history to see what sorts of restrictions on Second Amendment rights are consistent with the mainstream American legal tradition. According to the Court, the legal history of the Founding Era is the most important, the late nineteenth century much less so, and the twentieth century too late to create a tradition that contradicts the text of the Second Amendment.
Post-Bruen, some gun control advocates have been looking to Bowie knife laws as analogical justifications for bans on common modern rifles and magazines. In a separate post, Bowie knife statutes 1837-1899, I provide a state-by-state survey of all state Bowie knife laws through 1899. This post examines constitutional case law on Bowie knives, the history of such knives, and the history of pre-1900 bans on types of firearms.
