The Wire · CalGunHub

Ninth Circuit Declines En Banc Review of California Switchblade Carry Ban Ruling

Published July 16, 2026 · Updated October 12, 2026

The court left standing a panel decision upholding the concealed carry prohibition, over dissents joined by eight active judges; a cert petition is the remaining avenue.

Written by the CalGunHub desk from public reporting

Who this affects: For Californians, the denial leaves in place the panel decision upholding the state's prohibition on carrying switchblade knives, and it ends the case's path within the Ninth Circuit unless the Supreme Court agrees to review it. The panel ruling was narrow: it upheld the concealed carry restriction against a facial challenge and did not decide whether the open carry prohibition is constitutional, so future as-applied challenges remain possible. Eight active judges dissented from the denial, signaling internal disagreement that petitioners may cite if they seek Supreme Court review. The carry ban remains in effect meanwhile. This is general information, not legal advice.

The Ninth Circuit refused on July 16, 2026, to rehear a challenge to California's prohibition on carrying switchblade knives, leaving intact a panel decision that upheld the ban against a facial Second Amendment attack and drawing dissents joined by eight active judges.

The order in Knife Rights, Inc. v. Bonta, No. 24-5536, denied rehearing en banc of a panel opinion reported at 165 F.4th 1330. Applying the facial-challenge framework associated with the Supreme Court's Rahimi and Salerno decisions, the panel had concluded that history supports prohibiting concealed carry of switchblades and that one valid application is enough to defeat a facial challenge, according to a Morrison Foerster analysis. The panel expressly left undecided whether the open-carry prohibition is constitutional.

Judge Kim Wardlaw concurred in the denial of rehearing, collecting similar facial-challenge rulings from the Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Tenth Circuits, the analysis noted.

Judge Tung dissented, joined by seven colleagues. "The challenged statute is a total ban," he wrote, arguing that the historical inquiry must be run against that prohibition rather than some narrower concealed-carry rule, according to the Morrison Foerster summary. Judge Lawrence VanDyke also filed a dissent that the analysis described as unusually sharp in tone, at one point calling for his colleagues to be "benchslapped." The suit was brought by Knife Rights, Inc. against California Attorney General Rob Bonta.

With en banc review denied, the panel ruling stands and the carrying prohibition remains in effect. The challengers' remaining avenue is a petition for review by the U.S. Supreme Court. No cert petition had been reported as of early October 2026.

Informational only, not legal advice. Facts are attributed to the sources listed above.