Only months after celebrating the repeal of Hawaii's bans on butterfly, switchblade a..., legislators have filed a bill, SB 433, that would absolutely ban carry, open or concealed, of most knives, and all knives in many public places in Hawaii!

The proposed bans are unquestionably unconstitutional under the Bruen Second Amendment precedent, but the Ninth Circuit just gave another middle finger to the Supreme Court's guidance. As you can read at this link, the en banc court essentially upheld the vacatur of the panel decision that voided Hawaii's original butterfly knife ban on Second Amendment grounds. This leaves Hawaii free to once again ban knives.

While it appears to carve out an exception for butterfly knives and switchblades, which might seem like a good thing and a boon to those making them, in reality it would create one of the most egregious and far-reaching knife bans ever. The bill essentially adds “bladed weapons” to Hawaii’s sweeping firearms bans, which are, in fact, expanded in this bill.

One of the worst aspects of the bill is its vagueness. As written, nobody, not a resident, not a police officer, not a prosecutor, cannot possibly look at the statute and know for sure what is a “bladed weapon” that is being banned. This is fundamentally unconstitutional and leaves the law open for law enforcement and prosecutorial abuse. Terms that capture everyday tools carried daily by the public for perfectly lawful uses should be defined crisply and clearly to provide fair notice as required by longstanding law.

The bill bans undefined “bladed weapons” everywhere in Hawaii except for switchblades and butterfly knives. So, a not at all unreasonable interpretation of this term bans carry of a common pocket knife in Hawaii, except for those two specific types! Who decides whether it’s a “bladed weapon?” Certainly not the average resident or visitor. As some other examples, fillet knives used for recreational, subsistence and commercial fishing, dive knives, and hunting knives used for boar hunting (a popular means of reducing feral hog populations on the islands and a popular tourist business) would be banned as could a box cutter carried by a warehouse worker to work.

However, switchblades and butterfly knives that are otherwise legal to carry are also banned in “sensitive location(s)” which is so sweepingly broad it outlaws the possession of these knives at a family event at a state park (51 covering 30,000+ acres) or a parent picking their child up from school. The breadth of the bill’s scope is way beyond anything we’ve seen before.

If you live in Hawaii and have any relationship with a state legislator, we need your help. Please contact Knife Rights at info@kniferights.org. Knife Rights will let you know when it’s time to use our Legislative Action Center to contact Hawaiian legislators to oppose this bill.

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Knife Rights is America’s grassroots knife owners’ organization; leading the fight to Rewrite Knife Law in America™ and forging a Sharper Future for all Americans™. Knife Rights efforts have resulted in 50 bills enacted repealing knife bans in 31 states and over 200 cities and towns since 2010.