Background
Nestor Daniel Miranda was arrested after breaking into a parked car in a Monrovia grocery store parking lot, then being spotted by a responding police officer carrying a 14-inch knife tucked in his waistband. When the officer ordered him to stop, Miranda dropped the knife on the ground before running. He was convicted by a jury of felony vandalism and carrying a concealed dirk or dagger in violation of Penal Code section 21310, and sentenced to two years in county jail.
Miranda appealed, raising two arguments. First, he claimed section 21310 — which prohibits any person from carrying a concealed dirk or dagger on their person — is facially unconstitutional under the Second Amendment in light of New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen (2022) 597 U.S. 1. Second, he argued the trial court punished him for exercising his right to a jury trial by refusing to grant probation after he rejected a pretrial plea offer that included probation.
The Second District Court of Appeal, Division Two, took both arguments in turn, ultimately affirming the conviction and sentence.
The Court’s Holding
On the Second Amendment challenge, the court applied the two-step Bruen test. The first step asks whether the Second Amendment’s plain text presumptively protects the conduct at issue. Assuming without deciding that carrying a concealed 14-inch knife is presumptively covered, the court moved to the second step: whether California’s prohibition is “consistent with the principles that underpin our regulatory tradition.” It found the answer is clearly yes.
The court identified a robust and consistent historical tradition — spanning from early 19th-century antebellum state laws through the Reconstruction era — of prohibiting the concealed carry of small arms and bladed weapons. Multiple states banned concealed pistols as early as 1813. Knife prohibitions specifically were “common in the antebellum period” and motivated by the same public safety concern that animates section 21310: people who carry weapons in a concealed manner are presumed to have “an improper, aggressive motive,” not a self-defense one. The court also relied on the Ninth Circuit’s recent decision in Knife Rights, Inc. v. Bonta (9th Cir. 2026) 165 F.4th 1330, which reviewed the same historical record in upholding a related California knife regulation.
On sentencing, the court found Miranda forfeited any claim of vindictive sentencing by failing to object at the time of sentencing. Even when a constitutional right is at stake, claims about the manner in which a trial court exercises its sentencing discretion must be raised at sentencing to be preserved for appeal.
Key Takeaways
- California Penal Code section 21310’s ban on carrying concealed dirks and daggers is facially constitutional under the Bruen text-and-history test.
- Historical analogues need not be “historical twins” — the broad antebellum and Reconstruction-era tradition of banning concealed weapons (guns and knives alike) provides sufficient grounding.
- Section 21310 prohibits only concealed carry; openly carrying a dagger or dirk remains permissible under Penal Code section 20200, which forecloses most absurdity arguments about the statute.
- As-applied Second Amendment challenges in specific factual circumstances are not foreclosed by this facial ruling, but they will face a difficult road given the strength of the historical record.
- Failure to object to allegedly vindictive sentencing at the time of the sentencing hearing forfeits the argument on appeal, even where a constitutional right is implicated.
Why It Matters
California courts have faced a surge of Second Amendment challenges following Bruen and United States v. Rahimi (2024). This decision adds to a growing body of appellate authority upholding California weapons regulations by identifying the relevant historical tradition. The ruling makes clear that the concealed-carry exception has deep historical roots going back to the founding era and that courts need not find a law’s historical twin — only a law with comparable justification and burden. For practitioners handling weapons charges under section 21310, this decision effectively forecloses facial constitutional challenges, at least at the Court of Appeal level.
More broadly, the ruling illustrates how California prosecutors and courts will analyze Bruen challenges to blade-related restrictions: by focusing on whether the manner of carrying (concealed vs. open) falls within historically regulated conduct, rather than on whether the specific weapon type was historically restricted. This framework likely applies to California’s broader set of knife and concealed-weapons restrictions.
Read the full opinion (PDF) · Court docket