Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/05/31/its-now-legal-to-carry-brass.html
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They are now to be referred to as, “freedom fists.”
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Is that supposed to get my liberal panties in a wad? Because if you can carry a gun, why should I give two shits about a small piece of blunt and inert metal?
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Perhaps the next step is to legalize “brass balls.”
/s (Ducks).
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It’s now legal to carry brass knuckles in Texas. Because, the original ban was bullshit based on fearmongering and the stereotype of youth gangs of the time.
FIFY, CNN.
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I honestly didn’t know they were illegal in the first place. I used to go to big flea markets in Ohio when I lived there, and there were always vendors selling brass knuckles, nunchuks, swords, and other weapons (including the occasional handgun and assault rifle). I guess they could say “they’re novelty items!”
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InB4 “Don’t mess with Texas” joke.
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“Brass knuckles won’t help you when your hands ain’t clean.”
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Honest question: can anyone point to a case in which someone has used these in an act of undisputed self-defense?
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Next thing you know NYC will legalize nun-chucks.
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Some men are irrational about their violence. Consider this passage from Lonesome Dove:
Roy Suggs:
What did you find?
Dan Suggs:
Nothing but his old watch. Damn sodbusters!
Jake Spoon:
You shot those two men for a watch?
Dan Suggs:
Shot 'em, now I’m going to hang 'em.
Eddie Suggs:
Hang 'em? Dang, you beat all! I’ve never heard of hanging dead men.
Dan Suggs:
Shot 'em, now I’m gonna hang 'em, then I’m gonna burn 'em! Damn sodbusters. Can’t ever be too dead to suit me.
PS, Lonesome Dove is an outstanding novel and an equally outstanding film. Highly recommended!
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I don’t know where you would find that. Successful self-defense of any kind, barring lethal injury, is virtually never reported; certainly none of the cases I heard about personally.
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Right on. All it did was harass and stigmatize legitimate target punchers.
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If someone successfully incapacitated a mugger with the help of brass knuckles you’d think that would likely make it into some kind of police report or media story. Certainly the NRA loves to latch on to stories in which some citizen successfully defended themselves with a gun, rare as those cases may be.
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Is it legal for the police to use brass knuckles in Texas ?
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Like I say, none of the successful cases of self defense I’ve ever had related to me (from fellow martial artists) were ever reported on. There might have been a police report somewhere for some of them, but those aren’t publicly available.
As we’ve seen, there’s no NRA out protecting the rights of citizens to own two sticks tied together, in fact they’re happy to see scary “oriental” (and hard to monetize) weapons outlawed.
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A quick Google search for “brass knuckles” brings up many examples of the devices being used in the commission of a crime. It would be a lot easier to make a case for keeping them around if someone could point to even one example of brass knuckles being used in a productive manner.
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Laws vary from state to state. Some allow you to OWN them, but not CARRY them.
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If I recall correctly, one of the reasons that “brass knuckles” were de-criminalized was that some common items (like keychains) met the legal definition of “brass knuckles” and were being used as a pretext to arrest people who had not committed a crime.
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