Tennessee Knife Laws: No Banned Knives, No Blade Limit and the One Rule About Schools

The Short Version

Tennessee has the least knife law of any state we cover. There is no banned knife, no blade-length limit, no permit, no age rule and no distinction between open and concealed carry. That has been true since July 1, 2014, when Senate Bill 1771 took the switchblade out of the prohibited weapons list in 39-17-1302 and took knives out of the carry statute in 39-17-1307, which until then made it an offense to carry a knife with a blade over 4 inches "with the intent to go armed." Today that statute names "a firearm or a club" and nothing else. Local governments cannot fill the gap: 39-17-1314(f) preempts "the transfer, ownership, possession or transportation of knives" statewide, so Nashville and Memphis have no knife ordinances to enforce. What remains is about places and purpose. Any knife, pocketknife included, is a Class E felony on school property from kindergarten through university when it is carried "with the intent to go armed," and any knife becomes a felony when it is possessed with intent to use it in a crime. Outside those two rules, a 3-inch OTF and a 10-inch bowie in a Tennessee pocket are the law's business only if you do something with them.

What Changed in 2014

Until the summer of 2014 Tennessee had two knife rules. 39-17-1302(a) listed the switchblade knife among prohibited weapons alongside machine guns and explosives, which made owning an automatic a crime. And 39-17-1307(a)(1) made it an offense to carry "with the intent to go armed, a firearm, a knife with a blade length exceeding four inches (4"), or a club," which turned every fixed blade and most hunting knives into a question about why you had it. Senate Bill 1771, identical to House Bill 1883, repealed both. Governor Haslam signed it on April 10, 2014, and it took effect on July 1, 2014. The switchblade left the prohibited list. The knife clause left the carry statute. The definition of "switchblade knife" still sits in 39-17-1301, a knife whose blade "opens automatically by hand pressure applied to a button or other device in the handle" or "operation of gravity or inertia," but after 2014 the definition does work in only two places: the school statute, where a switchblade is one of the named weapons, and the sentencing clause in 39-17-1307(d), where a crime committed with a switchblade carries a doubled fine. A year earlier, in 2013, the Legislature had added subsection (f) to 39-17-1314, the preemption statute, so that no city or county could regulate knives on its own. The two laws together are why the old version of this page, with its talk of a grey area between open and concealed carry "depending on your intent," described a Tennessee that no longer exists.

Intent to Go Armed, and Where It Still Matters

"Intent to go armed" is the phrase Tennessee knife law used to turn on, and it survives in the Code, so it is worth knowing what it means. The Court of Criminal Appeals held in Cole v. State, 539 S.W.2d 46 (1976), that it is an element the State must prove: because merely carrying a knife may be lawful, the prosecution has to show the carrying was for the purpose of being armed, which the courts infer from the circumstances, such as the kind of knife, how it was carried and what the person said and did. A folder carried for work, a hunting knife on the way to the woods, a pocketknife in a pocket for the thousand small jobs a pocketknife does: none of that is going armed. Since 2014 the phrase no longer applies to knives on the street at all, because 39-17-1307(a) names only a firearm or a club. It applies to knives in exactly one statute, 39-17-1309(b), the school statute, where possessing or carrying a listed weapon "with the intent to go armed" on school property is a felony. The other place-based statutes use the same words but reach only "any weapon prohibited by 39-17-1302(a)": 39-17-1311 for public parks, playgrounds and civic centers, and 39-17-1306 for rooms where court is in session. Since 1302(a) no longer names a knife, those two statutes do not either, though a court's own security screening and a park's posted rules still do what they do.

What You Can Carry

Everything, with no permit and no length limit. Folding knives, fixed blades, hunting and skinning knives, daggers, dirks, stilettos, bowies, machetes, swords, push daggers, karambits, butterfly knives, gravity knives, assisted openers, side-opening automatics and OTF automatics are all legal to buy, sell, own and carry in Tennessee, openly or concealed, in a pocket, on a belt, in a bag or in a car. Disguised knives such as pen and belt buckle knives are not named either. The "butterfly dilemma" that older guides worried about is settled by the repeal: a balisong opens "by operation of gravity or inertia," which makes it a switchblade knife under the definition, and a switchblade knife is legal. The one knife-shaped thing the Code could still reach is the catch-all in 39-17-1302(a)(6), "any other implement for infliction of serious bodily injury or death that has no common lawful purpose," a Class A misdemeanor, which is aimed at objects with no use but hurting people and has not been applied to an ordinary knife of any kind. Nothing in state law restricts selling a knife to a minor or sets an age for carrying one. Hunting and fishing need no special rule because the general rule already allows any knife anywhere outside a school.

Nashville, Memphis and Local Rules

Tennessee is a preemption state for knives. 39-17-1314(f) says "it is the intent of the general assembly that this part is preemptive with respect to the transfer, ownership, possession or transportation of knives and other weapons and no city, county, or metropolitan government shall occupy any part of the field of regulation of the transfer, ownership, possession or transportation of knives or other weapons." The subsection was added in 2013, a year before the switchblade repeal, so that the repeal would mean the same thing in Memphis as in Monteagle. Any Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville or Chattanooga knife ordinance you find in a search result predates the statute or was never enforceable, and a county cannot set a blade limit for its parks or its courthouse by ordinance. What a local government can still do is what any property owner can: post its own buildings against weapons under 39-17-1359 and screen at the courthouse door. The posting statute is written around firearms, its required sign reads "NO FIREARMS ALLOWED," and its $500 fine-only misdemeanor is for a "weapon" on posted property. Whether a knife counts has not been decided, and the practical answer is that a posted building asks you to leave, and refusing is trespass.

Where You Cannot Carry

• Schools, kindergarten through university39-17-1309(b)(1) makes it an offense "to possess or carry, whether openly or concealed, with the intent to go armed," a list that includes a bowie knife, hawk bill knife, ice pick, dagger, switchblade knife, "or any other weapon of like kind," in any public or private school building or bus, on any campus, grounds, recreation area or athletic field, or on any property owned, used or operated by a board of education, school, college or university. "Weapon of like kind" is defined to include "any sharp pointed or edged instrument, except unaltered nail files and clips and tools used solely for preparation of food, instruction and maintenance," so every knife is covered. The State must prove intent to go armed, which is the Cole v. State element, but a knife on a campus is the one place in Tennessee where a prosecutor will try. A violation is a Class E felony, 1 to 6 years and up to $3,000. The exceptions are law enforcement, military on duty, registered security officers, and handgun permit holders in a few defined settings. The affirmative defenses include a school-approved knife show and a weapon that stays in the vehicle during drop-off or pickup. A nonstudent adult voting at a school polling place may have a pocketknife.
  39-17-1309
• Public parks, civic centers and courtrooms39-17-1311(a) and 39-17-1306 reach "any weapon prohibited by 39-17-1302(a)," carried with intent to go armed. Since 2014 that list has no knife in it. Courthouses screen at the door under the court's own rules and will take any knife.
  39-17-1311
• Posted propertyAny business, employer, venue or government building may post against weapons under 39-17-1359. The statute's sign and fine are written for firearms. For a knife, a posted rule means you will be asked to leave.
  39-17-1359
• AirportsNo knives past the checkpoint at Nashville, Memphis or Knoxville under federal rules. The public terminal follows state law.
  TSA
• Anywhere, with intent to use it in a crime39-17-1307(d) makes possessing a deadly weapon "with the intent to employ it" in the commission of, attempt to commit or escape from an offense a Class E felony, and raises the maximum fine to $6,000 when the weapon is a switchblade knife.
  39-17-1307(d)

Minors and Felons

Tennessee sets no minimum age for owning, carrying or buying a knife. The juvenile weapons statutes in part 13 are written for handguns. A 16-year-old with a folder, a fixed blade or an OTF in a pocket is breaking no state law anywhere outside a school, and the school statute applies to students and adults alike, with the felony turning on intent to go armed rather than age. School conduct codes add suspension and expulsion on top, and a student found with a knife should expect both. For a person with a felony conviction, 39-17-1307(b) and (c) bar firearms for people convicted of violent felonies, drug felonies and certain other offenses. No Tennessee statute bars a felon from owning or carrying a knife, and a felon stands under the same knife rules as anyone else. The one knife-specific consequence a felon shares with everyone is 39-17-1307(d): a deadly weapon possessed with intent to use it in a crime is a felony in itself.

Penalties

What the Internet Gets Wrong

Four things, and the old version of this page got the first one wrong for years. There is no "grey area" between open and concealed carry that turns on your intent. That was the law before July 1, 2014, when 39-17-1307 made carrying a knife over 4 inches with intent to go armed an offense. The knife clause was repealed and the statute now names only a firearm or a club. Second, the 4-inch limit: gone the same day, and no Tennessee statute now contains a blade length. Third, that switchblades, OTFs or butterfly knives are illegal: the switchblade ban was repealed in 2014, and a butterfly knife, which the Code defines as a switchblade because it opens by inertia, is legal with it. Fourth, that Nashville or Memphis has its own knife rules: the preemption statute has barred local knife regulation since 2013. The thing people get wrong in the other direction is the school statute. It is not a firearms law with a knife footnote. It names bowie knives, daggers and switchblades and sweeps in "any sharp pointed or edged instrument," and a knife carried with intent to go armed on any campus in the state is a felony with a sentence range of one to six years.

TEKTO Knives for Tennessee

Every TEKTO knife is legal to buy, own and carry anywhere in Tennessee outside a school, openly or in a pocket, by anyone, with no permit. The OTFs, the A5 Spry, A5 Spry Mini, A2 Badger, A7 Zastava and A4, are legal in Double Edge as well as Drop Point and Tanto, and the A3 Delta side-opener and the F1, F2, F3 and F4 folders need no thought at all. The X1 Atlas fixed blade at 3.30 inches carries on a belt, in a pack or in the truck, and the 4-inch question that would once have followed it into the woods was repealed in 2014. The one rule to remember is the campus one: none of them goes onto school property, and the A-series automatics are named in that statute by type.