Are butterfly knives illegal in California?

The California rule.

Penal Code 21510 makes it a misdemeanor to carry a switchblade on your person, carry it in the passenger area of a vehicle, or sell, loan, or transfer it - and California’s definition of switchblade (PC 17235) explicitly includes knives that open “by flip of the wrist,” which the courts have applied to balisongs with blades two inches or longer. Note what is missing: simple possession. Owning a butterfly knife at home, displaying it in a collection, transporting it properly to a buyer out of state - outside the statute. The crime is the pocket, the glovebox, and the sale - not the shelf.

The lines that decide cases.

Two inches, measured blade-only: shorter balisongs fall outside the switchblade definition entirely. Trainers - unsharpened, bladeless practice balisongs - are not knives under the definitions and are lawful to carry, though an officer at a stop may not agree until later. “Passenger area” has a real edge: a balisong in the trunk, or in a locked container in an SUV’s cargo area, sits differently than one in the center console. Penalty: up to six months county and a fine per violation - light on paper, heavy in effect, because a weapons-labeled misdemeanor follows records into immigration, licensing, and every future police encounter.

If you are already charged.

Measure the blade - dismissals happen on a ruler. Test the mechanism - stiff, screwed, or latched balisongs have beaten the “flip of the wrist” element. Fight the search - these charges ride on stops and frisks that have their own constitutional problems. And land it clean: judicial diversion under PC 1001.95 is available for most misdemeanors, and a diverted case dismisses outright. A butterfly knife should cost you a citation’s worth of stress, not a record - we make sure of it.

THE AUTHOR

Todd A. Spodek

Managing partner. Second-generation federal defense lawyer - the Netflix defense, the Fox and CNN analyst chair, and two decades of federal courtrooms.

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