First, I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice. It is my opinion based on some previous experience in law enforcement. Laws differ from place to place, and the wise person will find out what the laws are concerning weapons and concealed carry in the place where they live, and consult an attorney rather than relying on advice from random internet yahoos, including myself in that.
I have seen several posts recently, espousing carrying different items intended for self-defense, under the argument that they are not traditional weapons, therefore they are legal to carry and even to use for self-defense. Most of these arguments rely on the 'logic' that they can simply tell a law enforcement officer that the items used were not intended to be used as weapons and therefore they will not be arrested. Hmmm, yeah, no.
There are obviously items which everyone understands to be weapons, such as a firearm or a fixed-blade knife. I think we all understand that if you go about armed with either of those, you stand little chance of being able to argue that they were actually intended for a non-defensive purpose and therefore are not weapons. I mean, good luck with that.
However, internet 'wisdom' seems to believe that just because an item isn't a traditional weapon as such, or has a different purpose, it's not a weapon and is therefore legal. For example, a screwdriver, a kubaton, various punch-enhancers in the form of 'brass knuckles', steel balls, and so on.
Are they weapons? That depends very much on the circumstances. A screwdriver is not a burglar tool if I have a box of tools and am engaged in repairing something. A screwdriver in my back pocket at oh-dark-thirty while I am crouched by the basement window of some house other than my own? Yeah, burglar tool. It's not the screwdriver, it's the circumstances.
So you happen to carry around your ben-wa balls in your pocket (weird, but whatever) and you carry them for the express purpose of defending yourself. A punch enhancer, something to throw at someone, etc. Yeah, so the steel or stone balls by themselves, not weapons. But the context changes when you punch someone in the head with your hand wrapped around one, or use it as a hammer on a skull, or whip them at someone. Then, they *might* be weapons. And they *might* be considered illegal weapons.
There is no hard-and-fast rule. Everyone wants there to be a magical list of 'weapon/not weapon' and there isn't one. Some weapons may indeed be specifically named, but that doesn't mean nothing else is a weapon.
I went to court once with a guy who killed someone in a bar parking lot with a black powder rifle. The old-fashioned muzzle-loading kind. He was a felon, forbidden from owning firearms. He reasoned (because that's what ignorant people do) that since you don't have to go through a background check to buy a black powder gun, it's therefore not a gun. The judge saw it differently, and he was convicted of some form of homicide, and felon in possession of a gun. But it's not a gun, judge, don't you get it? Nope, the judge did not get it. There's the problem. We 'reason' that we know better than the law. Often a mistake.
So a ben-wa ball is not a weapon. True. If you use it for its intended (ew) purpose. Maybe - maybe - you could carry around a set and a cop *might* not consider them concealed weapons. Depends on the circumstances. If you use them to defend yourself (or heaven forbid, to break the law and assault someone), don't expect the cop to listen to your learned discourse about how some dude on the interwebs said it would be perfectly OK. Said dude won't be showing up in court to speak up in your defense. Said dude won't be serving your prison sentence or paying your fine.
There are legal ways to arm yourself in much of the USA. If you wish to go about armed, I suggest you take advantage of them, so there is no reason to have to explain to a cop how the strange objects in your pockets are actually intended for pleasure and not for bashing skulls in.
I'm going to quote a little Canadian law, just because it makes things easy to understand. Most US law is similar but couched in legalese and harder to grasp. This one is easy:
Canadian Criminal Law/Weapons - Wikibooks, open books for an open world
Keeping to that 'simple is best' theme, I will close with this. If your imagination tells you that you'll just tell the cop that X, Y, and Z and therefore he or she can't arrest you, you may find yourself mistaken. I cannot tell you how many people have informed me that I could not arrest them while I did just exactly that.
I have seen several posts recently, espousing carrying different items intended for self-defense, under the argument that they are not traditional weapons, therefore they are legal to carry and even to use for self-defense. Most of these arguments rely on the 'logic' that they can simply tell a law enforcement officer that the items used were not intended to be used as weapons and therefore they will not be arrested. Hmmm, yeah, no.
There are obviously items which everyone understands to be weapons, such as a firearm or a fixed-blade knife. I think we all understand that if you go about armed with either of those, you stand little chance of being able to argue that they were actually intended for a non-defensive purpose and therefore are not weapons. I mean, good luck with that.
However, internet 'wisdom' seems to believe that just because an item isn't a traditional weapon as such, or has a different purpose, it's not a weapon and is therefore legal. For example, a screwdriver, a kubaton, various punch-enhancers in the form of 'brass knuckles', steel balls, and so on.
Are they weapons? That depends very much on the circumstances. A screwdriver is not a burglar tool if I have a box of tools and am engaged in repairing something. A screwdriver in my back pocket at oh-dark-thirty while I am crouched by the basement window of some house other than my own? Yeah, burglar tool. It's not the screwdriver, it's the circumstances.
So you happen to carry around your ben-wa balls in your pocket (weird, but whatever) and you carry them for the express purpose of defending yourself. A punch enhancer, something to throw at someone, etc. Yeah, so the steel or stone balls by themselves, not weapons. But the context changes when you punch someone in the head with your hand wrapped around one, or use it as a hammer on a skull, or whip them at someone. Then, they *might* be weapons. And they *might* be considered illegal weapons.
There is no hard-and-fast rule. Everyone wants there to be a magical list of 'weapon/not weapon' and there isn't one. Some weapons may indeed be specifically named, but that doesn't mean nothing else is a weapon.
I went to court once with a guy who killed someone in a bar parking lot with a black powder rifle. The old-fashioned muzzle-loading kind. He was a felon, forbidden from owning firearms. He reasoned (because that's what ignorant people do) that since you don't have to go through a background check to buy a black powder gun, it's therefore not a gun. The judge saw it differently, and he was convicted of some form of homicide, and felon in possession of a gun. But it's not a gun, judge, don't you get it? Nope, the judge did not get it. There's the problem. We 'reason' that we know better than the law. Often a mistake.
So a ben-wa ball is not a weapon. True. If you use it for its intended (ew) purpose. Maybe - maybe - you could carry around a set and a cop *might* not consider them concealed weapons. Depends on the circumstances. If you use them to defend yourself (or heaven forbid, to break the law and assault someone), don't expect the cop to listen to your learned discourse about how some dude on the interwebs said it would be perfectly OK. Said dude won't be showing up in court to speak up in your defense. Said dude won't be serving your prison sentence or paying your fine.
There are legal ways to arm yourself in much of the USA. If you wish to go about armed, I suggest you take advantage of them, so there is no reason to have to explain to a cop how the strange objects in your pockets are actually intended for pleasure and not for bashing skulls in.
I'm going to quote a little Canadian law, just because it makes things easy to understand. Most US law is similar but couched in legalese and harder to grasp. This one is easy:
Canadian Criminal Law/Weapons - Wikibooks, open books for an open world
- anything designed to be used as a weapon;
- anything that a person uses as a weapon, whether that thing is designed as a weapon or not; and
- anything that one intends to use as a weapon regardless of its design
Keeping to that 'simple is best' theme, I will close with this. If your imagination tells you that you'll just tell the cop that X, Y, and Z and therefore he or she can't arrest you, you may find yourself mistaken. I cannot tell you how many people have informed me that I could not arrest them while I did just exactly that.