Ban on samurai swords becomes law

Legislation against selling, making, hiring or importing samurai swords in England and Wales has come into force.

Those breaking the law face six months in jail and a £5,000 fine. Carrying a sword in public is already illegal. Exemptions will cover swords which are used for re-enactments or antique weapons kept on display by collectors.

Eight years ago a councillor was killed by a man wielding a samurai sword in the office of Cheltenham Liberal Democrat MP Nigel Jones.

Anyone found guilty of importing samurai swords will face up to seven years in prison and an unlimited fine.



Complete article at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7331099.stm

I'm guessing that the museums get by with an exception to this, while private collectors are hosed. What a shame.

"Exemptions will cover swords which are used for re-enactments or antique weapons kept on display by collectors."

WTF needs a fake, factory produced 'samurai sword' anyway?

They just are not real 'samurai' swords, hand crafted by master-swordsmiths to razor sharpness. They're made of inferior steel, machine produced.

Replicas are not a problem.

that aren't genuine antique four-figure collectibles. You do know that some martial artists study the way of the sword, no?

I own a pair of sai. Do you think they should be banned because they're not authentic Japanes antiques (which I can't afford)?

Just kidding lol. But I would like to have a couple sets as a collection after looking through several knife magazines.

:shrug:

To ban one kind of sword when dozens of other types exist?

Do you think it'd also reduce gun violence if you banned one kind of gun?

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Wow. Talk about delusional.

Posts like this one make reasonable people ashamed to be Americans.

Seriously. Sheesh.

Once I hear the "people like you..." line, I realize that the conversation (at least on one end) has devolved simply into which bumper-sticker slogan is the loudest...

Your analysis does not look into increasing social alienation, the rising gap between rich and poor in the past 30 years, the Tory and Labour governments' attacks on the welfare state, the increasing rate of poverty, the ending of the mixed economy and its replacement by market neoliberalism.

If you weren't so ignorant about the UK, then maybe you would have known that already.

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The only people who carried around guns in Britain in towns or cities were criminals anyway (or the very occasional target shooter on their way to a range - though I think the one or two I've spoken to kept their guns at their club anyway). British people did not carry guns for self-defence, nor did they keep handguns at home for self-defence, even before the ban. A few people in rural areas may have a shotgun handy, and they reckon that would help in self-defence, but they can still have those.

There has been an increase in gun crime, but the ban won't have had an effect on that, because normal people didn't have guns before either. Any criminal would not have thought "I won't mug that person, they might have a gun" because they wouldn't have. They might think twice about attacking another gang member because they might be armed, but that won't have been made any more likely by a ban.

What the ban was meant to do, and in this it has succeeded, is disarm the occasional nutter who has a gun collection and then goes crazy.

it was billed as a "preventing mass shootings" measure.

Which, as of today, can be argued that it worked. Still had the massive domestic terrorism thing (the July 7th attacks) but hey, didn't use gun.


Yet anti-gun peopple continue to spout off about incidences of one or two murder victims and say that a UK-style ban (i.e., confiscation) will lower the crime rate!

Well banning Guns did not work, lets ban swords when that doesn't work well go to baseball bats..

Ah, progress!




Mmmm... just smell that 1998 British confiscation of all legally-owned handguns working like a charm!

I just knew it. LOL!

Every time a gun thread comes up the utopia of EU nations who ban or come damn close to banning private gun ownership get dragged into this. Now we see that without guns there seems to be other weapons that people use..

Nobody uses these to kill people. Anyone who would is going to find something else anyway. If this even prevents one murder I'll be stunned.

Maybe you just had to be there to appreciate how these MPs are seeing it, but it does seem overly specific to ban inexpensive modern samurai swords. Because that particular vintage and price range of that particular type of sword, amongst all edged weapons, themselves a subset of "things that are sharp", was used to cut an MP? I read the original BBC story just to be sure that it wasn't lost in translation.

It would seem to make as much sense as banning only Walther PPK replicas because some guy thought he was James Bond and plugged a stranger in a Nehru jacket.

For some reason I keep thinking of the story from The Onion: "Ninja Parade Slips Through Town Unnoticed Once Again"

A broadsword, rapier, kitchen knife would have been useless! What a stupid ban...

A few years back in a city near me, a couple of guys did a home invasion on a house that was occupied at the time. One of the roommates used a samurai sword to attack the house jackers, hacked off a guy's arm and prevented the house invasion from continuing.

I forgot where, but a few years back I remember a case of a domestic dispute between brothers, and one brother used a sword to kill another.

It happens, it's just a rarity.

Should be effective as a weapon if close enough.

I'm thinking that if safety becomes an issue here or wherever I move I would keep a spray bottle handy filled with vinegar or something that could cause eye irritation long enough to disable the intruder.

If there was a home invasion involving a halberd or a sarissa or something, I'm certain that the following day someone would call for a ban on polarms or Macedonian pikes. If there were two in a period of several years, there'd definitely be such a law.

It's ridiculous. Legislating based on the exception rather than the rule is always a bad idea.

when there has not been any supporting evidence for the need.

I think I remember a case like that. Any time a homeowner fights off a home invasion, that's a good thing.

Of course, someone's gonna have to lend the intruders a hand...

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20080311-0647-ca-brf-socal-samuraikilling.html

From sea to shining sea:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15996616/

Even around the corner from my late abode:
Unusual for this quiet city though.

Warning: PDF file
http://www.supremecourtofohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/2/2007/2007-ohio-1060.pdf

sword-wielding assailants.

Teenager kills mom with sword, injured three others, gunned down by responding officers after attacking them as well.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=63253


And this was in rural South Dakota, a very gun-friendly state with minimal regulation or restrictions. Hell, you can drive with a loaded gun in your vehicle passenger compartment, as long as it's not concealed!

Will someone please make those "lightning-bolt! lightning bolt!" losers illegal already?

I LARP



:cry:

My son and I hit the garbage heap at a construction site last week to pick up a bunch of 5-gallon buckets. If you are a heavy gardener you'll understand. Anyway there was a trash can filled with household shit and there were the 2 swords. My son grabbed them and tossed them in the back. I thought they were plastic or something but when he took one out of its scabbard it was clear they were not. Cheap chineeses stainless, but a blade a quarter inch thick at its spine and sharp as any typical pocket knife. You could kill a person with one of them in a single swipe, no doubt about that. These were just cheap decorative shit to be sure. They are not to be confused with gardian swords.

So let me ask you, Britannia, how's that crime situation working out for you? :shrug:

... before you realize that you're sliding on your ass. I guess they're going to ban pepper spray, kubotans next, then hammers and screwdrivers, then maybe people will have to wear pads on their knuckles or face the magistrate.

...

It's economics and social welfare.

Not guns, knives, etc.

The murder rate here is 1/3 what it is in the US.

We're getting better. You're not.

They said that because there were so many attacks with knives, kitchen knives should be banned, and that cooking techniques could be adapted so people could cook without using knives, or only using small knives...

I don't know how people can put up with the legal system over there...

- baseball bats, pillows and rocks will be next. Hate to think of what they will outlaw when people resort to murder by old-fashioned hand-to-neck throttling.

The place is crawling with ninjas. Serious infestation.

Has to be one of the studidest laws ever. Sounds like some MP in England had a little too much time on his hands.

Ridiculous

What he didn't mention is that it handily rids the market of his cheaper competition!

This is the dumbest law ever. This will make weapons unavailable to practitioners of several martial arts. Also, the best iaito maker outside of Japan is in England. Now that will be illegal, and that's a damn shame.

A broadsword or a claymore is far more dangerous, and they're not illegal. Of course, I don't think they should be illegal either.

Maybe they should just ban cheap wallhanger swords, that should keep some idiots from buying swords.

Seriously, I don't know. Those things are really, really sharp. Do you use dull swords? Those rattan sticks? Armor?

There are shinais - used mostly in kendo, which are practice weapons made out of strips of bamboo, and there are bokken, which are wooden pratice swords roughly the same shape and weight of a katana.

In iaido, which is a martial art that focuses on the art of drawing a katana from its scabbard and making an attack during the drawing motion, I do imagine that shinais and bokken won't quite work, compared with the real thing.

When samurai swords are outlawed only ronin will have swords. :D

The country whose national legend is Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table...who seemed to spend all their time running around the countryside cutting people in two with swords.

Now, if this was the US--where we always preferred guns--that would be different. But this kinda goes against the whole English Wild West thing, dunnit?

jmowreader

The whole Arthur and the knight of the round table was "modern" in the 4 or 5 century, when Europe for the most part was tackling from the invasion from the barbarians.. In the 4th and 5th century, the roman rule of Britain was goon, and in their place, many small kingdoms have take hold.If you know your history well, you should know that king Arthur, was one king who was fighting the Pict's, (the scottish) and for a long time manage to keep some order and some peace in the area he was ruling. After that he was dead, killed by his own son, both died by the way, he was buried somewhere, we don't know where. And is said to come to England's comfort, ,when needed again..

But again, for a country who's memory goes 260 year back, the whole idea of a memory goes 1000 year back or so, is maybe difficult to comprehend...

And for the record. The whole concept of GUN, was not made public before many hundred of year after Arthur, and his round table was long gone.. The Gun as a weapon was coming to Europe, in the late 12 early 1300s. And was not part of regular was before the mid 1300s.. beginning of 1400s..

Diclotican

Sorry my bad english, not my native language

years back.

One step closer...

There will be plenty of time for the fun when you are sitting in your government owned home watching government mandated television programming (no less than two hours a day please).

I read somewhere recently, that there were a lot of stabbings in the UK. Perhaps they're afraid people will go for something with a longer reach.

In Seattle, there used to be a bloke who rode around on his bike with a sword strapped to his back. Apparently, the police gave him a permit to do so, since was some kind of martial arts jedi.

Has the broadsword been banned?

J

:cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry: