Hawaii Knife Laws: What Act 21 Changed in 2024, and the One Rule That Is Left

The Short Version

Hawaii rewrote its knife law in May 2024, and most of what the internet says about it, including the old version of this page, describes the law before that. Act 21, House Bill 2342, repealed the 1959 ban on switchblades and gravity knives and the 1999 ban on butterfly knives, and it rewrote the general weapons statute so that open carry of a dirk or dagger is no longer an offense. What is left is one idea applied three times. HRS 134-51 makes it a misdemeanor to knowingly carry "concealed on the person, or in a bag or other container carried by the person, any dirk, dagger, blackjack, metal knuckles, or other deadly or dangerous weapon." 134-52 and 134-53 say the same thing for a switchblade knife and a butterfly knife. Possessing them at home, selling them, and carrying them openly are all legal. The phrase "deadly or dangerous weapon" has been read narrowly by the Hawaii Supreme Court for fifty years: it means an instrument "whose sole design and purpose is to inflict bodily injury or death," and the court has said in so many words that a diver's knife, a kitchen knife and a pocketknife are not that. So an ordinary folder or fixed blade can be carried in a pocket anywhere in the state, and the rules above apply to daggers and to automatics and balisongs when they are hidden. Using any of them in a crime is a separate class C felony.

What Changed in May 2024

For sixty-five years Hawaii made it a misdemeanor to manufacture, sell, transfer, possess or transport a switchblade, a definition that swept in gravity knives, and from 1999 it did the same for butterfly knives. In 2023 the Ninth Circuit held in Teter v. Lopez that the butterfly knife ban violated the Second Amendment. The decision was taken up for rehearing by the full court, and before it could be decided the Legislature changed the law. House Bill 2342 passed in the 2024 session, Governor Green signed it in May 2024 as Act 21, and under its own terms it took effect on approval. The Act did three things. It rewrote 134-52 and 134-53 so that the offense is no longer owning a switchblade or butterfly knife but knowingly carrying one "concealed on the person, or in a bag or other container carried by the person". A definition of each knife stayed in the statute. It rewrote 134-51(a) to the same shape, deleting the old words "or within any vehicle used or occupied by the person or who is found armed with," which had made it an offense to carry a dagger openly or to have one in a car. And it added to all three a defense for a person "lawfully present in the person's own home," a provision that the use-in-a-crime felony is served in addition to the sentence for the crime, and a clause in 134-51 saying that section does not apply to firearms, switchblades, butterfly knives or electric guns, each of which has its own statute. The Hawaii Supreme Court's 2024 decision in State v. Wilson, which rejected the federal Bruen framework under the state constitution, has no effect on any of this: the Act is a statute, and it is the law whatever the courts say about the Second Amendment.

What Is a Deadly or Dangerous Weapon

The general statute lists a dirk, a dagger, a blackjack and metal knuckles and then says "or other deadly or dangerous weapon," and for knives everything turns on that phrase. The Hawaii Supreme Court answered in 1974, in State v. Rackle, 55 Haw. 531: the catch-all "is limited to instruments whose sole design and purpose is to inflict bodily injury or death." In State v. Giltner, 56 Haw. 374 (1975), the court applied that to a double-edged diver's knife and held it was neither a dangerous weapon nor a dagger, because a dagger is a short weapon used for stabbing and a diver's knife is a tool. The test it stated is that a deadly or dangerous weapon is "one designed primarily as a weapon or diverted from normal use and prepared for combat." A 1976 decision, 56 Haw. 642, held that a cane, a butterfly knife and a kitchen knife were not deadly or dangerous weapons under the statute, which is part of why the Legislature wrote a separate butterfly knife statute in 1999. On the other side of the line, State v. Ogata, 58 Haw. 514 (1977), held that a sheathed sword-cane and wooden knuckles set with shark's teeth were deadly or dangerous weapons, and State v. Muliufi, 64 Haw. 485 (1982), held that nunchaku are not per se weapons when carried for martial arts practice. The rule those cases leave is clear enough for a knife: a single-edged folder, a hunting knife, a camp knife, a fillet knife or a fixed blade with a working edge is designed as a tool and is outside the statute, in a pocket or anywhere else. A dirk, a dagger, a stiletto, a push dagger or a double-edged boot knife is designed to stab and is inside it when concealed. The "diverted from normal use" branch means a tool becomes a weapon if you carry it as one, which is the ordinary rule everywhere.

Concealed, Open, Bags and Cars

The operative words in all three statutes are the same: "carries concealed on the person, or in a bag or other container carried by the person." Open carry is outside them. A dagger on a belt in a sheath, an OTF clipped in plain view, a balisong in a visible holster, all lawful since Act 21 deleted the "found armed" clause that once made open carry of a listed weapon an offense in itself. Concealed means on your body under clothing or in a pocket, and the 2024 text adds the bag you are carrying, so a switchblade in a backpack on your shoulder or a dagger in a purse is concealed carry. The car is the open question. Before 2024, 134-51 reached a weapon "within any vehicle used or occupied by the person". Act 21 deleted those words, and the statutes now speak only of the person and a bag or container carried by the person. A dagger or an OTF in a glove box or a center console, not on you and not in a bag you are carrying, is not within that language, and no Hawaii court has read the new text. The cautious reading is that the Legislature took vehicles out on purpose. The careful practice until a court says so is to keep a listed weapon in a case in the trunk. At home, none of this applies: 134-51(g), 134-52(d) and 134-53(d) each make lawful presence in your own home a defense to the concealed-carry charge, so a switchblade in a kitchen drawer or a dagger in a pocket on your own lanai is lawful.

Switchblades, OTFs and Butterfly Knives

134-52(e) defines a switchblade knife as "any knife having a blade that opens automatically by hand pressure applied to a button or other device in the handle of the knife, or operation of inertia, gravity, or both." That covers side-opening automatics, OTFs and gravity knives, and arguably a flick-open folder, since "inertia" is in the definition. 134-53(e) defines a butterfly knife as one with "a blade encased in a split handle that manually unfolds with hand or wrist action with the assistance of inertia, gravity, or both." Since May 2024 both are legal to buy, sell, own and carry openly anywhere in Hawaii, and a misdemeanor only when carried concealed on the person or in a bag, with the home defense available. Under 134-51(e) the general statute does not apply to either, so the question whether an OTF is a "deadly or dangerous weapon" never arises. Its own statute governs. Assisted-opening knives, which the user starts by hand and a spring finishes, are not named. The definition requires the blade to open "automatically" by a button or device in the handle, and an assisted opener's thumb stud or flipper is on the blade and needs the hand to start it, but no Hawaii court has ruled, the American Knife and Tool Institute advises against relying on the distinction, and a manual folder avoids the question. Possessing, using or threatening to use a switchblade or butterfly knife "while engaged in the commission of a separate felony or misdemeanor" is a class C felony under subsection (b) of each statute, except where the other offense is itself a weapons offense under the same chapter.

Where You Cannot Carry

• SchoolsHawaii has no criminal statute aimed at knives on school grounds. The rule is the zero-tolerance policy in the Education Code. 302A-1134.6 says any child who possesses, sells or uses "a dangerous weapon or switchblade knife" at school or a Department of Education activity may be excluded from school for up to ninety-two school days. "Dangerous weapon" there is defined as "a dirk, dagger, butterfly knife, blackjack, slug shot, billy, metal knuckles, or other instrument whose sole design and purpose is to inflict bodily injury or death," which is the Rackle test, and switchblades are named separately. An ordinary pocketknife is outside the statute, but every school's own conduct code treats any knife as a weapon, and a student should expect discipline under it.
  302A-1134.6
• Courthouses and state buildingsHawaii courthouses screen at the door under the Judiciary's own security rules and take any knife. State office buildings with screening do the same.
  Facility rules
• AirportsNo knives past the checkpoint at Honolulu, Kahului, Kona, Lihue or Hilo under federal rules. Inter-island flights are federal flights.
  TSA
• County ordinancesHawaii has no knife preemption statute, so the four counties may in principle add rules. We found none that adds to state law, and we did not read each county code. Check Honolulu's before carrying a listed weapon openly in the city.
  County code
• Private propertyEmployers, hotels, venues and stores may post their own knife rules. Breaking one gets you removed, and refusing to leave is trespass.
  Posted rules

Minors and Felons

Hawaii sets no minimum age for owning, buying or carrying a knife. The age limits in chapter 134 are written for firearms. A 16-year-old with a folder is breaking no state law, and a 16-year-old with an OTF hidden in a backpack is committing the same misdemeanor an adult would. School is where a minor meets the law, through the ninety-two-day exclusion in the Education Code and the school's own code of conduct. For a person with a felony conviction, Hawaii's prohibited-person statute, 134-7, covers firearms and ammunition. No state statute bars a felon from owning or carrying a knife, and the three knife statutes apply to a felon as they apply to anyone else. The one thing a felon shares with everyone is subsection (b) of each: a knife possessed or used during a separate crime is a class C felony of its own, sentenced on top of the underlying offense.

Penalties

A conviction under 134-51 also costs the knife. Subsection (d) orders the weapon "summarily destroyed by the chief of police or sheriff."

What the Internet Gets Wrong

Four things, and the old version of this page got three of them wrong because it was written before Act 21. First, that switchblades and butterfly knives are illegal to own in Hawaii: they have been legal to own, buy and carry openly since May 2024, and the only offense is carrying one concealed. Second, that you can carry only "single-edged pocket knives": a single-edged pocketknife was never the limit, since the statute reaches only weapons designed solely to injure, and a hunting knife, a diving knife or a fixed-blade camp knife has been lawful to carry all along. Third, that daggers and dirks cannot be carried at all: open carry of a dagger became lawful when Act 21 deleted the "found armed" clause. Concealed is still the offense. Fourth, that a knife in your car is concealed carry: that was the pre-2024 statute, and the vehicle language is gone, though no court has yet said what replaces it. The thing people get wrong in the other direction is the bag. "In a bag or other container carried by the person" is new 2024 text, and an OTF or a dagger in a backpack is concealed carry under it.

TEKTO Knives for Hawaii

Every TEKTO knife is legal to own in Hawaii, and the line runs through how you carry the automatics. The F1 Alpha, F2 Bravo, F3 Charlie and F4 Echo are manual folders, tools under the Rackle test, and can be carried in a pocket anywhere in the state. The X1 Atlas is a 3.30-inch single-edged drop point in a Kydex sheath, a working knife rather than a dagger, and carries on a belt or in a pack on any island. It is the knife for the Nā Pali trail the old version of this page worried about. The OTFs, the A5 Spry, A5 Spry Mini, A2 Badger, A7 Zastava and A4, and the A3 Delta side-opener are switchblade knives under 134-52: legal to buy, legal to own, legal to carry where the whole knife shows, and a misdemeanor in a pocket or a bag. Carry them openly, or keep them at home.