The 2nd covers “arms”. An arm is any weapon that can be carried and operated by a single person. While some argue that the 2nd covers only military arms, that restrictive interpretation is highly questionable and a matter of some debate.
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That it would look nice and level when hung on the wall? In which case, best not use elastic.
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I imagine the idea is that going through a kata is meditative.
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I’d make a joke about, “Just put yourself in the mindset of an old, wealthy white man with a fondness for slavery”, but history demonstrates time and time again that the founders were infinitely better people than the modern Republicans who spout that nonsense.
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Some people would put that in their online dating profile.
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You’re absolutely right. @wazroth too. The NRA has been so successful in framing the debate, I just went with the assumption it’s about guns. So I guess the Amendment does bear on the law at hand.
I hate being wrong, but especially when I was snarky.
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a sticks-chained-together carrying society is a polite society
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Hah, I missed the URL the first time I read this…
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Thank you!
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It is hilarious some of bans in place. IIRC the TMNT had to be called the Teenage Mutant HERO Turtles in the UK, and replaced Mikey’s nunchaku with a grappling hook thingy.
Germany banned Ninja stars for the same reasons NY banned nunchaku.
So I am glad the NY Ninjas can now let their freak flags fly.
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I remember a (likely apocryphal, I realize) story about the origin of nunchaku. The story goes that the emperor had banned metal because he figured that way the people couldn’t make weapons to rise up against him. Without being able to make metal blades, the farmers came up with a new implement to thresh rice: two heavy sticks joined by a very fine cord. The heavy stick gives the cord enough force to cut through the rice. But also, you can clearly bust someone’s head with it.
Eventually the peasants got tired of their awful emperor and overthrew him, just as he had feared, and they did using weapons that had no metal at all.
Thinking of that story makes me feel like banning nunchaku is deeply ironic. One way or another they are a symbol of the fact that you can bust someone’s head with pretty nearly anything.
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Surprisingly…
https://www.oki-islandguide.com/attractions/shureimon
The plaque on the gate is inscribed with the four Chinese characters that read “Land of Propriety,” or Shurei-no-kuni.
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With out looking it up, I think they banned weapons, not metal per se, but I could be wrong. The Emperors and Shoguns were constantly getting overthrown or shifted around.
But yes - many martial arts weapons had their origins in things that could be used as farm tools. Like the kama is just a sickle. I thought the nunchaku was from a tool for threshing the rice. If someone takes the time to look it up, they should post it.
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There was the case in Massachusetts recently where the Supreme Court overturned someone’s conviction for possession of a stun-gun.
Not sure what it was like in your town but nunchucks and throwing stars were a staple in every teen boy’s arsenal in 1980s Cleveland.
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[repeating self for no good reason]
Only if you ignore the whole “well-regulated militia” part. Which, by precedent, is where we are, I guess.
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This is frequently true in the West, too. Flails, polearms, warhammers, etc., started out as peasant tools taken up as arms and were later refined into weapons of war.
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These things, and a lot of things we label “ninja weapons” are from Okinawa. And those stories tend to date to the period where Japan was straight invading their shit and taking over. So it’s either specific bans on weapons for Okinawans to prevent them rebelling. Or just the emperor imposing Japan’s class and political structure. Where swords and some other weapons were restricted to particular classes or government officials. Depending on which version your looking at.
But as far as I know those are all folk tails with most of these weapons having long histories as weapons in China and South East Asia. With no clear use as farm impliments. And nunchucks might be way more modern given that they’re pretty impractical, and there’s not much evidence for their use in the time period in question.
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Epic flail.
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