Federal law now shields knife transport across state lines, overriding local rules.
S. 246 — Interstate Transport Act of 2025 · Filed by Ted Budd (R-NC) · 8 cosponsors · Introduced Jan 24, 2025 · Reported out
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What it does
This bill allows people to transport knives across state lines for lawful purposes, overriding state and local knife restrictions. It requires knives to be locked in containers during transport (except emergency safety knives in vehicle cabins), bars arrest for compliant transport, and awards attorney's fees and expungement to people who successfully defend themselves against knife-possession charges under this law.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is a federal preemption of state and local knife-transport laws, creating a uniform interstate standard. It is not primarily about knife rights in general (which remain subject to state law) but about the right to move knives across state lines despite local restrictions.
What the text implies
- The bill's 'no arrest' provision may create a de facto immunity for knife carriers in transit, since officers cannot arrest for state-law violations if the person claims compliance with federal law—shifting burden to prosecutors to prove non-compliance rather than officers to prove violation.
- The attorney's fees and expungement provisions create a financial incentive for litigation and may encourage knife carriers to challenge state enforcement, potentially flooding courts with federal-preemption defenses.
- By allowing 'any lawful purpose' transport, the bill does not distinguish between recreational, occupational, or self-defense transport—all are equally protected, which may conflict with state laws that distinguish by purpose.
- The definition of 'transport' is extremely broad, including 'any other activity related to the journey,' which could shelter activities (stops, delays, temporary lodging) that state law treats as separate possession events.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill creates a uniform federal right to interstate knife transport, which benefits citizens who travel with lawful knives and removes a patchwork of state restrictions—a genuine liberty interest. However, it also shields knife carriers from state enforcement and creates a federal override of local public-safety law, which may reduce state and local governments' ability to regulate weapons in their own jurisdictions. The net effect depends on whether the interstate commerce benefit outweighs
Who stands to gain
- knife manufacturers and retailers (increased interstate sales and reduced state-level market fragmen
- common carriers and logistics companies (reduced liability exposure for transporting knives in compl
Named in the bill
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Transportation Security Administration (TSA), State and local governments, JBHT (J.B. Hunt Transport Services — semantic affinity, likely due to common-carrier implications)
Where it stands
8 cosponsors: 5 Republicans, 3 Democrats.
- Jan 24, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jan 24, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation”
- Feb 5, 2025 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Ordered to be reported without amendment favorably”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 2 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $3,610,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 120 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Ted Budd, the sponsor, reported $300,250 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- American Association for Justice — $3,610,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (4,044 characters) on Aug 9, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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