On September 21, 2026, attorney Daniel Schmutter filed a new federal lawsuit on behalf of the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, Knife Rights, Inc., and four individual New Jersey residents, naming Attorney General Jennifer Davenport as the lead defendant. Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, Inc. v. Davenport does not challenge a gun law. It challenges New Jersey’s criminal bans on carrying knives, batons, and other non-firearm weapons for self-defense, and it does so by walking directly through ground the Second Amendment only recently won.
Island-Hopping Off Cheeseman
I have described the modern Second Amendment litigation strategy as island-hopping: you take one island, hold it, and use it as the staging ground for the next landing. On July 17, 2026, the Third Circuit sitting en banc struck down New Jersey’s ban on AR-15-style rifles and its ten-round magazine cap in Cheeseman v. Davenport, a 10–5 decision written by Judge Arianna Freeman. That ruling is the island. It establishes, in a circuit that includes New Jersey, that the state’s post-Heller approach to defining and banning arms does not survive scrutiny. It is worth being precise about where things stand: the Third Circuit stayed its own mandate on August 4, 2026, so the rifle and magazine bans remain enforced in New Jersey while the state seeks Supreme Court review, with a cert petition reportedly due around October 15. Cheeseman is a won precedent, not yet a lifted ban. This new lawsuit takes that precedent and moves it to new terrain — arms other than firearms.
A Felony to Prepare, a Right to React
The complaint attacks two provisions at once. New Jersey’s prohibited-weapons statute makes it a fourth-degree crime to carry a gravity knife, dagger, stiletto, baton, blackjack, or slingshot “without any explainable lawful purpose.” A companion provision criminalizes possessing an “other weapon” under circumstances not manifestly appropriate to its lawful uses. New Jersey courts have read both provisions to exclude self-defense from the list of legitimate purposes that justify carrying such an item. That produces an outcome I find impossible to defend on principle: since Bruen forced New Jersey to issue concealed-carry permits, a resident may lawfully carry a loaded handgun on the street for self-defense, yet that same resident commits a felony carrying a pocketknife for the identical reason. The Second Amendment’s text protects the right to keep and bear “arms,” not merely firearms, and Heller confirmed that arms include anything customarily carried for attack or defense. A state cannot recognize that right for the most lethal category of weapon while criminalizing it for everything less lethal.
What State v. Kelly Actually Held
The complaint’s clearest illustration of the law’s cruelty is State v. Kelly, 118 N.J. 370 (1990). Rochelle Kelly was convicted under New Jersey’s “other weapons” statute for carrying a box-cutter after a violent encounter with her ex-boyfriend, Randolph Boone, the father of her child and a repeat abuser. The New Jersey Supreme Court upheld the conviction on the theory that Kelly armed herself in anticipation of danger rather than spontaneously in the moment of attack, and that anticipation defeated the “legitimate purpose” defense. A law that would have protected Kelly had she reached for a weapon only after violence began, but convicts her for having the foresight to prepare beforehand, does not protect self-defense. It punishes it.
Caetano’s Concurrence, Not a Dissent
The complaint also invokes Caetano v. Massachusetts, 577 U.S. 411 (2016), a unanimous per curiam decision vacating a state court’s ruling that stun guns fell outside the Second Amendment. Justice Alito, joined by Justice Thomas, wrote separately, concurring in the judgment. He wrote:
“Courts should not be in the business of demanding that citizens use more force for self-defense than they are comfortable wielding.”
That sentence goes directly to New Jersey’s scheme, which effectively forces a resident who does not want to carry a firearm to either accept a more lethal tool than they need or forgo any means of self-defense at all.
Wolford’s Word and the Cases Still to Come
There is a second thread here worth pulling, and I offer it as my own reading rather than anything the complaint itself argues. In Wolford v. Lopez, 609 U.S. ___ (2026), decided this past June, Justice Alito’s majority opinion restated the Bruen framework and asked whether a law “concern[s] any form of ‘Arms,’ i.e., any weapon customarily used for offensive or defensive purposes.” That single word, “customarily,” does real work. It excludes the lamp, the coffee cup, the fire extinguisher — anything that could theoretically be swung in anger but is not customarily carried as a weapon — while confirming that knives, batons, and firearms alike qualify. I have said before that Wolford reads like it was drafted with an eye toward the AR-15 cases now pending before the Court, Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, argument set for December 2, 2026. If that is right, the “customarily used” test Wolford supplies will not stay confined to Hawaii’s carry rule. It is the same test this new New Jersey complaint asks a federal court to apply to knives and batons, and it is the test the Justices will apply to modern rifles before this year is out.
This article is based on analysis by Professor Mark W. Smith, constitutional attorney and Host of the Four Boxes Diner 2nd Amendment channel. Watch the original video here. This does not constitute legal advice.