With Switchblade Ban Overturned, Thank... James Dean?

James Dean is one of those stars who are so iconic because they died so young. Perhaps his best known film is Rebel Without a Cause, and because of that movie, he's always been the king of cool, even in death.

Yet he gets a whole lot cooler when you find out he played a role in getting the federal switchblade ban overturned.

That's not me talking, but Stephen Gutowski over at The Reload. (Paywalled, but worth the money.)

James Dean just played a role in getting rid of a federal ban on switchblades.

That’s because the Fifth Circuit believes he played a role in getting them banned to begin with. On Wednesday, a unanimous three-judge panel found the Federal Switchblade Act (FSA) unconstitutional. It struck down the ban on interstate manufacture and sale of switchblades as a Second Amendment violation.

And the panel’s reasoning pointed to Dean’s 1955 star vehicle: Rebel Without a Cause.

“Over thirteen million Americans watched the following on the silver screen in 1955: A high school field trip brought a group of students from Dawson High to Griffith Observatory. After a lecture on the place of man in the universe, a new student, Jim Stark, is confronted by a gang of his classmates as he exits the planetarium. The gang’s leader, Buzz Gunderson, draws a knife from his jacket. Buzz effortlessly depresses the knife’s release. The blade flicks open,” Chief Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote in Knife Rights v. Blanche. “Though reluctant, Jim, played by James Dean, agrees to play the ‘blade game.’ Jim wins this opening round, but his victory only sets up the next round—one that ends with Buzz’s death.”

Judge Don Willet and Judge Cory Wilson, both Donald Trump appointees, joined Elrod, a George W. Bush appointee, in describing the congressional response to the movie as a moral panic.

“The movie debuted around the peak of hysteria surrounding juvenile delinquency,” Elrod wrote. “This ‘hysteria’ was coupled with the ‘widespread perception that switchblade knives were the tool of thugs and juvenile delinquents.'”

Congress was unamused and acted, banning switchblade knives.

However, as Gutowski notes, knives designed to spring open quickly predate the 1950s' fear of juvenile delinquency. They were around during the American Revolution. The mechanisms are old, and for that reason, they fall under the category of arms protected by the Second Amendment at the time when the ban against them was passed.

Also noted in the decision is something I've brought up a time or two, and that's how automatic knives are common even today — "in common use," anyone? They're all over the place and are legal in most jurisdictions, even before the ban was overturned. 

In short, there just wasn't much to justify the ban, and while the DOJ tried to defend it, there wasn't enough meat on that particular bone to accomplish much of anything except making the government look foolish.

And so we have James Dean, who has been dead for decades, playing at least somewhat of a role in getting the switchblade ban overturned by a federal court. Maybe that rebel had a cause after all... supporting the right to keep and bear arms. 

Editor’s Note: President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.

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