[Thom R.]

my experience is that when it comes to public policy debates in a democracy, especially with regard to crime, that countering emotionally based arguments with more emotionally based arguments simply doesn't work very well. the better approach is to put the numbers on the table for everyone to see and compile the relevant statistics so that people can make an informed judgment. e.g. what are the trends in assault and battery in the UK? can it be broken down by weapons? what are the average sentances for people caught committing crimes using various weapons? these are the kinds of things I would suggest that interested parties start delving into.

[George Davidson]

Thom
you are being too logical. The ratio of sword murders to knife murders is about 1 to 500 (I think) but knives cant be banned (they looked at it and found they couldnt define knives tightly enough). Carrying a knife is a crime BUT not enforced very well if at all in most places. Also that wouldn't be a NEW policy ... NEW policy is the only way to get the headlines. Up to 5 years is the supposed sentence for carrying a knife but mostly they are simply confiscated due to no space in our jails.
To be seen to be doing something, the govt needed a quick win in the media after a number of knife murders in London. they decided to go after swords as users can be demonized easily. "No one in this day and age needs a sword" was the sound bite used by one labour MP.

[Peter Bosman]

[Ken Speed]

Hi Peter,


It looks like you're building your own Mongol horde out there. Actually that photo sure looks like a recipe for a happy kid. It also looks like there is a foal on the way too.


You wrote, "Why do you think bot I and my partner chucked our careers and went ' AWOL' from the society you paint and live more and more selfsufficient wiping our behinds with ec legislation about what we can eat since we grow and breed almost all ourselves and raise our kid the way WE se fit "

I think you made a pretty good choice.

You also said, "This, the sword ban, is a battle the bona fide sword users cannot win: SOMEthing WILL be (has been) ordained. That will not be annulled so it is no use crying over split milk.
The max. result is getting the bona fide user's rights included in the bill. Good luck to all about that."

Yes, I agree. I think that is about the best they can hope to do at this point.

Ken Speed

[Mike Lee]

[George Davidson]

ok call me a liar for not being clear enough. ... actually that happened cause I keep editing my posts once written as I'm trying VERY hard not to put my opinions into my comments in case I get the thread closed down. I gave up trying to post about this on SFI (and frankly gave up on SFI at the same time). It was becoming a taboo subject when you tried to explain the problem to US citizens and politics got loose.

This article just got mentioned on sky news from Time magazine and does convey the problem that the govt thinks its tackling http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725547,00.html

[Nathan Robinson]

Please note that some of you are coming very close to crossing the boundaries I expressed already. This will be the only warning I will put up here. The topic will not simply be closed down: as I said, I will removing posting privileges. Once again, this is the sole warning.

[Mike Lee]

Sorry Nathan - My threads seem to be a little volatile?

Again, rather than discuss how silly this legislation is and how ineffective it will be - would we all be better served if we discussed relevant defenses againt these measures and presentable arguments which I can take from here and present to MP's?

[George Davidson]

Mike, its probably me ... Sorry Nathan, its a difficult subject to try to stop from expanding on and then it turns into a rant before you've realized.

[Peter Bosman]

The crux is that if the bunch of us project ourselves as responsible users having a valid purpose to own tools that happen to be swords, than this will not be an argument on any table; if ONE 'dude' confirmes the position of the 'genreal interest' it will be presented as proof of irresponsible sword ownership.

My personal position is that the responsible users of these tools of their purpose, bend and apply for defence.

Obviously there are people who do not see the need why they should bend. That reason is called democracy. Living in a democracy will always limit personal freedoms of individuals and the alternative is to opt out. As I wrote earlier you cannot both have the cake and eat it.

peter

[Hisham Gaballa]

Sorry to seem so thick. I had a read through the Hansard notes, but I can't work out if this applies also to antique weapons in private collections. I am fascinated by Indian and Middle-Eastern weapons and armour and I'm trying to build up a collection. As it happens I only have one Indian tulwar and no yataghans, kilijs or shamshirs - yet. Will the law apply to antique swords of this type? What happens to the tulwar I already own when the law goes into effect? Will I have to hand it over to the police and have my lovely 19th century tulwar destroyed? What about cavalry sabres, i have a friend who has a small collection of Victorian cavalry swords, will he have to hand them over?

Sorry about all the questions. Thanks.

[D Critchley]

No it does not apply to antique weapons, I have had a definitive reply from the Home Office on this.
The legislation will add swords to the Offensive Weapons Order of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. This has a clause that specifically states that antique weapons excluded from the order and defines "antique" as over 100 years old. This has been the case with swordsticks for many years.

If you are interested in antique eastern swords you may want to see what Wallis and Wallis have this month at auction. I was there this morning. There are some nice unusual pieces.

[David Sutton]

Sorry if I'm being a little dense here, so please bear with me but can I just clarify; the British goverment now intends to ban all swords that do not fall under the understood exemptions ie antique swords or those owned by renactors/martial arts practitioners who have full liability insurance?

Just to be clear I'm not talking solely about samurai swords, but replicas of European swords also.

I've searched the internet but cannot find any definative answers, only articles concerning the Scottish word ban and the Samurai sword ban.

[Ken Speed]

Hi Peter,

You said, "The crux is that if the bunch of us project ourselves as responsible users having a valid purpose to own tools that happen to be swords, than this will not be an argument on any table; if ONE 'dude' confirmes the position of the 'genreal interest' it will be presented as proof of irresponsible sword ownership.

My personal position is that the responsible users of these tools of their purpose, bend and apply for defence.

Obviously there are people who do not see the need why they should bend. That reason is called democracy. Living in a democracy will always limit personal freedoms of individuals and the alternative is to opt out. As I wrote earlier you cannot both have the cake and eat it. "


In the real world, I pretty much agree with you however philosophically this really rubs me the wrong way.

My feeling is that as long as no one is injured or bothered I should be able to buy swords as easily as cuckoo clocks and I really shouldn't have to answer to anybody because it isn't anyone's business.

People are trying to shift responsibility from the actor to the utensil. The swords, regardless of their quality or type are incapable of doing anything to anybody; it is only when someone uses them in the commission of a crime that they become a problem. Even then it is the person committing the crime who needs to be controlled not the implement.

I'm sure that this sword ban will go through but it won't do any good because the same person who wants to rob a store will go into a hardware store and buy a framing hammer or go to a construction site and pick up a piece of rebar or steal an axe. None of these things are weapons until they are used as weapons. I would submit that a $20.00 "samurai" sword with a skull on the handle isn't a weapon either until it is used as one. This law is the same as the laws that ban pit bulls rather than try to control irresponsible dog owners, the dogs aren't the problem! Raised properly they are wonderful dogs.

Someone wrote here about someone who was attacked and forced to go to an ATM and withdraw money by a gang of eleven year old kids. Why were they able to do that? Because, as minors, they didn't need to fear the consequences of their actions, they would not be held responsible.

Laws like this sword ban are just political smoke so the politicians can claim they, "helped fight crime" the next time they run for office. They know the law won't do any good, they simply don't care and they don't care if they are making life hard for people who collect swords or practice martial arts or own dogs or whatever because those people are tiny minorities of the population and politically meaningless.

As I said above I'm sure the sword ban will go through in Britain and I'm willing to bet you that there will be attempts to enact similar laws in the U.S. and Canada within a couple of years regardless of swords being a problem or not just because sword owners are an easy and essentially defenseless target for politicians.

Ken Speed

[Peter Bosman]

[Li Jin]

Good evening gentlemen

I believe...is all about self control and discipline. I heard such news in other languages, saying that people
fighting with weapons like swords, and one of them looks like a samurai sword, so they decide to ban samurai swords
this what I heard, I feel bad to hear about swords were ban, I was going to take a trip to UK to look for nice sword have nice day and I wish you luck Mr. Lee.

Jin-Every weapons require discipline to handle.

[Hisham Gaballa]

[Ken Speed]

Hi Peter,


It looks like I've run into someone even more cynical about politicians and government than am I. That, Peter, is quite an accomplishment!

You said, "Democracy is a form of dictatorship; only one by mass mediocracy. "

I have to admit that I'm hard pressed to argue against your statement but that isn't how it was meant to be neither in the Parliamentary or Constitutional forms of democracy. What we are supposed to have is majority rule and minority rights not dictatorship by sound bite, jingoism and morons.

I mentioned this to Nathan a while ago, T.H. White in his novel THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING has a scene in which Merlin takes the young Arthur to an ant hill. At the entrance is a sign which reads, " All Things Not Mandatory Are Forbidden". They travel through the tunnels and Merlin uses ant society to teach Arthur about government and individuality. When they reach the exit to the ant hill there is another sign which reads, "All Things Not Forbidden Are Mandatory". Cynic that I am, I think all of us have to fight constantly or we will all be reading versions of those signs.

I agree, sword owners in Britain should be able to adapt to the guidelines without too much pain but the point remains that they shouldn't have to.


Ken Speed

[David Sutton]

I think this thread is in danger of being closed if it continues to go around in circles discussing the rights and wrongs of the sword ban, as Peter Bosman has shown this ban is coming and there is almost zero that we can do to prevent it. UK sword collectors need to accept this and move forward rather than getting angry and doing nothing. The government has identified a problem, and I agree, there is problem with the use of swords to commit violent crimes in the UK, Its not a prevalent problem but I can understand the government's point of view.

Luckily there is a glimmer of hope and that is that on some level the government understands that there are reasonable, legitimate cause to own swords. I think they are looking at this in a fairly crude light. For example with the Samurai sword ban they only looked at martial artists and collectors of 'genuine' Japanese swords either antique or made in Japan by sword masters, as being reasonable exemptions. Now most people on here know that there are many quality reproduction Samurai swords which are not made in Japan or using particularly traditional means, but do not fall into the cheap 'art swords' category which form the bulk of weapons involved in crimes.

So where does this leave the genuine collector of swords? Basically rather than getting angry we need to get active and we need to push for a compromise such as licensing. Are there any forum members who live in countries which have such schemes? How well does that work? If licensing is out of the question and I have a feeling that the government might discard it as being too expensive, then maybe we need to find out how acceptable collectors organisations would be for those who are neither renactors or martial artists? For example such a body could require its members to take out liability insurance as part of its membership. I think the point about insurance is significant. I believe the government is using it as a sort of informal license which doesn't require them to actually do anything or more importantly spend any money, but amounts to the same thing. Afteral how many criminals or gangs are going to want to fork out for insurance so they can use swords as offensive weapons? It will also discourage the casual sword buyer too, as such casual, impulse bought, items are probably more likely to fall into the wrong hands than swords bought as part of a collection.

I think a good place to start would be writing to your MP ASAP or even better attending their constuency surgery and meeting face to face BTW don't take your collection or any part of it down to show him! Though possibly if you printed out some material from Albion or Arms and Armour then it might be of some use. Don't be confrontational be entirely reasonable, explain you understand the problem and explain that there are many genuine collectors and students of arms, armour and swords who are going to be unfairly penalised, I hae more books about swords and ancient and maedieval warfare than I do swords. If we can give an impression, and its the reality of the situation, that sword enthusiasts and owners are more amateur historians and not people who like to play with 'big boys toys' or teenagers with a collection of gaudy fantasy style swords, then I think we have more of a chance of getting concrete exemptions. At the very least it will raise our hobbies profile and possibly the number of votes that the MP might lose at next election (or gain if they raise your case ), and if you live in a marginal constituency (ie where the MP only has a slim majority) a few votes might make all the difference.

Now I know its easy to write a long post about what should happen etc, but if our hobby is finished by this ban at least we tried rather then just sat back and grumbled about democracy, politics, the price of fish etc etc etc.

[Anders Backlund]