Katana Banning in UK

[Andy3012]

So, recently the purchasing and distribution of Katana Swords have been banned in the UK. This new law comes with very very harsh punishments from what i understand in the news a fine of several thousand or in severe cases several years inprisonment. This law includes imitation swords aswell, as they were being purchased and sharpered up to use as weapons.

Heres a fairly old, but very relevant news article that might help you understand a little more about it. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7139724.stm

I myself managed to buy a set of real swords (for display) just before the banning - and was hoping to invest in a couple more, i really do love the look of them. I personally dislike the idea how a minority can spoil it for the majority, as there are quite possible more people in the UK who use them for training and display purposes. While as far as i am aware it isn't illegal to own them - the police insist you turn them in, all i can say is screw that to be honest. To me this seems such a waste of a law and such a shame for those (like myself) who enjoy not only japanese culture but sword collecting, ninjitsu (we rarely used them + they were immitation) and other related subjects.

What do you guys think on this matter? I just wanted to see what people of a similar state of mind thought about it - most of my friends (with no interest in MA etc), think that it's brilliant and can't understand why i disagree so much. So it would be nice to discuss the subject with people with similar interests.

 

[FieldDiscipline]

Liarbour government for you I'm afraid. Laws for laws sake. Thank goodness we'll be rid of them soon.

I was hoping to have the cash to invest in one really good sword before the ban came into force, never materialised though.

The annoying thing is these weapons are involved in such a small amount of attacks. The most common? You've guessed it, kitchen knife. The govt. are after them too by the way. They dont think you need a point on the end of your knife. Honestly. I'm not kidding.

It'll be pens next...

 

[FieldDiscipline]

I particularly liked this:

In the wrong hands, samurai swords are dangerous weapons

Vernon Coaker, Home Office minister.

So in traind hands they're not then? Idiot.

The Association of Chief Police Officers has backed the Home office move saying that while the weapon is relatively uncommon, there is justification for a ban.

Cant we ban nutters instead? You should be able to buy a (very expensive) licence. Suprised they havent thought of that, they're taxing everything else!

 

[Sukerkin]

As far as I know, the legislation enacted should not impact particularly on legitimate practitioners. I'm waiting to see the actual legislation as drafted tho' compared to the White Paper consultation. Is is a ridiculous law, having a minimal impact no doubt (other than getting rid of all those SLO's in gift shops) but we have to try and live within it as best we can now.

 

[tellner]

I remember the BMA a year or so ago talking about that. "We see horrible injuries from kitchen knives. They are murder weapons. Nobody needs a ten inch knife that can stab right through a human being," and similar untreated effluent.

It's illegal to carry a pocket knife. Newspaper deliverymen who carried them to cut bundles were arrested and convicted during the early days of the UK knife ban because, and I quote the judge word for word, "The people have a right to feel safe." Crimes with knives have not exactly decreased in the intervening years.

Law enforcement screwed up no fewer than half a dozen times in the lead up to the Dunblane massacre from reading the paperwork to doing the background check to revoking the guy's license when his status changed. The response? Ban all handguns. Make Olympic shooting teams leave the country to practice. It hasn't cut the supply of illegal firearms or those used in crimes. And this is on an island.

The unofficial move to plastic mugs in pubs doesn't seem to have done anything to stop injuries in drunken brawls.

Now it's "samurai swords". Don't worry. The thugs will switch to tulwars, broadswords, gladii, and kampilans until those are banned. Pretty soon you'll need to keep chef's knives in securely locked, licensed facilities and need a chef's license to use them.

Even though they hem and haw and talk a lot about "might" and "could" the government has admitted that the ubiquitous CCTVs - one for every 14 people, 20% of the world's total and *snort* 32 within 200 meters of George Orwell's old apartment - haven't demonstrably prevented a single violent crime.

Don't worry, I'm sure Britons are all "Secure Beneath Watchful Eyes", an actual Metropolitan Police Force ad campaign:

And stand ready to "Watch, Ride and Report" in Stalinist Heroes of Socialist Labor artwork:

I see no reason to believe that the LDs or the Tories would be much different than Labour on this one. The BNP probably goes into near-fatal orgasmic trance at the thought of holding the whip. In fact, given Max Mosley's extracurricular activities that's probably very close to the mark :wink2:

The national culture is stuck in the same rut as the Americans. Make up a symbol to represent the problem. Keep people in a constantly agitated state of low-grade fear. Get them to reflexively surrender their freedoms and be used to arbitrary intrusive authority. Don't actually address the underlying cause. Repeat as long as you want to stay in power.
​

Reducing the UK's heroic alcoholism rate?
A reversal of its decaying infrastructure and dead industrial base?
Some sort of rational solution to "the Polish plumber" and resulting social unrest?
Get the teen pregnancy rate in line with Western Europe's as opposed to the US's?
Reduce the worst excesses of Thatcherism?

Those would go a longer way to reducing the violent crime rate than bans on anything that could conceivably be used to hurt someone. But they're difficult and require careful thought. Instead, you'll see more useless bans.

I predict that within five years you'll see calls to restrict "Deadly Martial Arts" to those who really need to know them. There will be an official government emphasis on healthy sports and more laws restricting who can be an Offensive Weapon. No decent person needs to know how to break a neck. The only reason a person would want to learn how to use a Prohibited Weapon is because he's a criminal. Oh, a few hobbyists will whine, but really. They could take up stamp-collecting or aspire to be in the Olympics in Judo or WTF Tae Kwon Do. Kendo, Kenjutsu, Koryu Bujutsu, Kali, Krabi-Krabong, Kalaripayittu and anything else I can think of starting with a "K" and involving knives or swords will just have to go away so that people can feel safe.

 

[thardey]

Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.

The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.

:what I wouldn't give for a Guy Fawke's smiley right about now:

 

[Sukerkin]

Oh, tellner - if only you weren't right .

Thardey, I don't know as we've got any revolution/rebellion left in us any more. The country that I grew up in is gone, for good as far as I can tell (tho' 'forever' is a long time). We were subjects but we had in some ways more 'natural law' rights then the codified structure that the American's use(d).

Now 'we' are focussed by the media (and I'm as guilty of this as the next man) on 'threats' that are nothing to do with the way our society has been pulled from under us.

The handgun ban and now the sword ban are merely symptoms of what is going wrong. They will change nothing in terms of the crime rate and only serve to restrict those who are still so foolish as to believe in the concept of the rule of law.

Altho' not mentioned in the Bible as one of the Horsemen of the Apocolypse, the current near future of the 'advanced' powers at the forefront of world events is 'Chaos'.

 

[Steel Tiger]

I hope this legislation does not impact negatively on all of you practicing sword arts in Britain.

This sort of knee-jerk legislation is a cunning method to disguise the fact that the authorities are unable to deal with the real issues plaguing the nation. Lets face it, if they ban every single weapon type then the villains will use cricket bats (lets see them try to ban those :uhohh: ) to assault people.

They need to do something about the teens running rampant through Britain's streets. The behaviour and violence of these kids is just crazy. It almost seems as though Britain is going to have a generation of lazy foul-mouthed drunkards, whose only source of income is crime. what happens after that?

You know there was a time, not so long ago when the British police were feared by the criminal establishment. What has happened? I realise that London cannot have a bobby on every street corner as it once did (19th century), but that wasn't the case in the '70s and '80s and the police were actually a force to be reckoned with. Has politically correct, media-appeasing legislating dumped Britain into a deep dark hole?

 

[Flying Crane]

Lets face it, if they ban every single weapon type then the villains will use cricket bats (lets see them try to ban those :uhohh: ) to assault people.

Start developing your cricket bat kata. Get it in place before everything else gets banned.

 

[tellner]

The handgun ban and now the sword ban ... only serve to restrict those who are still so foolish as to believe in the concept of the rule of law.

Altho' not mentioned in the Bible as one of the Horsemen of the Apocolypse, the current near future of the 'advanced' powers at the forefront of world events is 'Chaos'.

And there is the real danger in a nutshell. Civilization is built on respect for the Law. It does not survive well when we suffer from arbitrary rule of even more arbitrary force. As we switch from peoples who revere and respect the Law to ones that comply to the threat of force we erode the foundations of society. Unchecked this will destroy institutions which make day to day existence let alone progress possible.

 

[Steel Tiger]

The handgun ban and now the sword ban are merely symptoms of what is going wrong. They will change nothing in terms of the crime rate and only serve to restrict those who are still so foolish as to believe in the concept of the rule of law.

Altho' not mentioned in the Bible as one of the Horsemen of the Apocolypse, the current near future of the 'advanced' powers at the forefront of world events is 'Chaos'.

This is something legislators constantly seem blind to. But then again, they are not really trying to achieve anything, just look like they are trying to achieve something. It's all just a media show. I'm not sure if it will ever dawn on them that criminals don't obey the law. Maybe we should go back to calling criminals outlaws just to keep reminding law makers of this.

 

[tellner]

But then again, they are not really trying to achieve anything, just look like they are trying to achieve something.

What you are talking about is called Security Theater. The term was coined by Bruce Schneier in his remarkable book Beyond Fear.

From the Wiki article:

Security theater has been defined as ostensible security measures which have little real influence on security whilst being publicly visible and designed to demonstrate to the lesser-informed that countermeasures have been considered. Security theater has been related to and has some similarities with superstition.

Here's a bit from one of his many essays on the subject (this one on RFID bracelets on newborns in hospitals):

Security is both a reality and a feeling. The reality of security is mathematical, based on the probability of different risks and the effectiveness of different countermeasures. We know the infant abduction rates and how well the bracelets reduce those rates. We also know the cost of the bracelets, and can thus calculate whether they're a cost-effective security measure or not. But security is also a feeling, based on individual psychological reactions to both the risks and the countermeasures. And the two things are different: You can be secure even though you don't feel secure, and you can feel secure even though you're not really secure.
...
Like real security, security theater has a cost. It can cost money, time, concentration, freedoms and so on. It can come at the cost of reducing the things we can do. Most of the time security theater is a bad trade-off, because the costs far outweigh the benefits. But there are instances when a little bit of security theater makes sense.
...
Of course, too much security theater and our feeling of security becomes greater than the reality, which is also bad. And others -- politicians, corporations and so on -- can use security theater to make us feel more secure without doing the hard work of actually making us secure. That's the usual way security theater is used, and why I so often malign it.

 

[MBuzzy]

So how exactly does the government intend to differentiate between the "serious practitioner" or "enthusiast" and the criminal just looking to rob a bank with a fake sword?

I mean, can they really put a monitary limit on it? Like, any sword that costs less than $600 is not legal....or a more technical resolution, like only full tang, fully hardened and sharpened swords are legal.

 

[Steel Tiger]

So how exactly does the government intend to differentiate between the "serious practitioner" or "enthusiast" and the criminal just looking to rob a bank with a fake sword?

I mean, can they really put a monitary limit on it? Like, any sword that costs less than $600 is not legal....or a more technical resolution, like only full tang, fully hardened and sharpened swords are legal.

That's a good point. Here's another. If ownership is made illegal (and apparently it isn't yet) then there are some institutions, like the British Museum, that could be charged with being in possession of a saleable quantity. High grade stuff too!

 

[MahaKaal]

Here is the legislation for the sword ban.

http://www.heavencore-backup.co.uk/definitiveV2/Uploads/The_Criminal_Justice_Act_1988.pdf

 

[Tez3]

The reality of the law in practice is that the sale of the imitation Japanese swords sold as ornaments is illegal.
The use and sale of weapons used by martial artists isn't. That's how the law is interpreted and is working in practice.
You used to be able to buy sets of swords, not sharpened, for use as ornaments and it was the widespread sale of these that the government and the police wanted stopped as it was these after being sharpened that were being used in criminal incidents. You could buy these in gift shops, market stalls etc. They were made cheaply in China and exported here, (they were also very poor quality), you could buy a set of three swords for about £25 ($50) and they were being used by gangs to intimidate and rob people.
We have a great many laws in this country that at first seem draconinan but when looked at in practice and how they are policed are actually quite sensible.

 

[Sukerkin]

I'm waiting until I see the law in practice before finally committing to a solid opinion. My worries are based on how the escalation of legislation went with the handguns - that started out sounding reasonable too and look where it lead.

As to whether the law is sensible at all ... well, the White Papers own statistics proved that it wasn't as it had a very nice breakdown of the weapon types used in assaults - can you guess what was at the bottom of the list with a tiny number of incidents?

 

[myusername]

The reality of the law in practice is that the sale of the imitation Japanese swords sold as ornaments is illegal.
The use and sale of weapons used by martial artists isn't. That's how the law is interpreted and is working in practice.
You used to be able to buy sets of swords, not sharpened, for use as ornaments and it was the widespread sale of these that the government and the police wanted stopped as it was these after being sharpened that were being used in criminal incidents. You could buy these in gift shops, market stalls etc. They were made cheaply in China and exported here, (they were also very poor quality), you could buy a set of three swords for about £25 ($50) and they were being used by gangs to intimidate and rob people.
We have a great many laws in this country that at first seem draconinan but when looked at in practice and how they are policed are actually quite sensible.

There you are, the facts behind the newspaper headlines! I was getting quite worked up about this until Tez's post. It amuses me that I still get caught out like this. We see a lot of this in our media - half truths to whip up fury and indignation and then word of mouth seals the myth. It's all designed to make us cry "political correctness gone mad!" and "Down with this Nanny state!".

So, I am reassured until the next time.

 

[Sukerkin]

Don't relax too quickly, MuN as it is yet to be seen how the law will be enacted. The problem really lies in how the distinction can be drawn between the SLO's and the 'real' thing by the Police and Customs.

I am licenced and insured and the swords I use cost fifty times the 'wallhanger' gift-shop price-tags but can I trust HM Customs not to snip my next purchase in half as it passes through their warehouses? Or how about I get stopped by the police on my way back from training? I'll have an iaito, a shinken, a live-blade wakizashi and three or four bokken in the boot - how are they going to react to that? It's all legal but I'm not betting they wouldn't confiscate the lot.

Hence, I'll wait and see before spending a £1000 on another addition to the collection.

 

[Tez3]

The guidelines given to the Home Office Police are that genuine martial artists will have no problem proving that they are what they say they are, weapons will be carried as carefully they always have been and martial artists are very unlikely to be stopped as suspicious unless of course you do draw attention to yourself lol!
I have a colleague who is an avid figherman ( to the point of obsession actually but that's another story!) he carries several quite big very sharp knives in the boot of his car for filletting, gutting etc the things he catches.
Like shotgun owners martial artists keep their weapons secure and don't carry them openly so everyone can see what they are.
The police are on the lookout for a 'certain' type if you follow what I mean, they will distinguish between them and the martial artists, well I can anyway lol! I can't speak for the customs though they are not so much looking for weapons as ways to tax things!