Ninja sword owners will be paid to surrender weapons before ban
You think you are in the 21st century think about the 16th century. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_hunt
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/27/ninja-sword-owners-paid-surrender-weapons-banned/Open linkView original on lemmy.dbzer0.com
51 replies
Man, the uk is a silly place
Yeah, i mean if someone really wants to decapitate someone they can just go to the next best hardware store and get a chainsaw. This is so pointless.
Playing devil's advocate, chainsaws are used for cutting trees and other tasks, they are not inherently a weapon unlike a sword (these are similar arguments to the ones used about gun control). I do find it silly to ban weeb swords, but mostly because I don't think they're ever really used for crimes? Or did I miss some info about a wave of ninja murders in the UK?
Yeah there are probably more deaths from chainsaws than those swords. But yeah ofcourse in this case there is no legal use case other than artistic value. For things like folding knives tho there are lots of good legal uses and they are still banned.
I think you're only banned from carrying locking knives (or big knives) in public without a good reason, so on the very off-chance you were questioned by plod then "I'm a tradie going to work" or whatever should be a fine explanation.
Wait, they ban basic knives as well? Might as well ban nail clippers!
This will probably be a reaction to the Hainault sword attack last year which resulted in the murder of a schoolboy, attempted murder of others in the street, and an attack on a sleeping family, using a samurai sword. The trial is due to start tomorrow.
They are unfortunately being used by children, who understandably think they look sick as shit, to murder each other. Here are some "highlights":
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czddg1zvl34o
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-66187503
https://archive.is/52YjV#selection-515.0-533.242
I will bet you that Parliament would be willing to impose a ban on possession of a chainsaw without just cause.
Why? Is there a legitimate reason for anyone to own or be able to easily purchase a ninja sword?
Why would you need a reason—legitimate or otherwise—to justify owning a sword?
Because it’s a weapon.
It's ridiculous to ban them because of that. The criminals could just use a kebab knife instead or whatever. A proper way would be to ban carrying all long knives around, except in closed boxes. So the kebab guy or sword collector can buy a knife and bring it to his restaurant/home, but by the time a criminal gets it out of the box ppl can call the police and it's already a crime.
You already need to have a reason to carry around a large blade. Anything over pocket/eating size. Someone with a kebab knife would have to be selling, gifting, repairing or travelling from or to a kebab place.
With these swords, collecting them is a good reason that would make it difficult to prosecute someone carrying it as a weapon. Banning them means the person carrying them is without doubt a criminal, because they are now illegal.
Most people committing knife crimes don’t have a profession (that they would tell police about) that requires large blades.
Collecting them isn't much of a reason to be carrying them around.
I don't think the police would let you off if you claimed to have just bought it. I'd expect them to demand some kind of proof.
The law is so when they raid a gang members home and find five swords they can do something other than compliment them on their awesome ninja sword collection.
So is a water pistol. Depends if I change the pH of the water?
Depends if it's rainwater or, salty tears. pH can go either way then.
It's not legal to carry a water pistol full of acid either.
yeah, decoration/recreation (or do you want to ban the bow and arrow too? maybe ban boxing gloves?)/historical preservation
banning swords is absurd, if anything you want miscreants to use swords because they're fucking massive and obvious, you can't conceal a katana.
meanwhile if someone wants to kill and not make that fact visible, they can just.. keep a screwdriver in their pocket and stab someone, and you're never going to ban screwdrivers.
Blunt weapons and historical items are not banned per this legislation.
Are they actually called Ninja Swords in the legislation because if so, that's hilarious.
Yes, they are literally called Ninja swords in the legislation.
Yes, it is hilarious.
"This is a samurai sword, I'll have you know. 😤"
This "Ninja sword" is apparently a straight sword:
It sounds like most katanas and such, what I think people probably normally think of when they think of a "ninja sword", are already banned under existing legislation, as they're curved-edge, rather than straight-edge:
https://www.katanamart.co.uk/content/27-uk-samurai-sword-law
Apparently the Japanese did use straight swords for a while.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chokut%C5%8D
Maybe the issue here is that importers avoided their previous restrictions by selling straight swords, and they're making a new class to catch those and for God-knows-what-reason are calling it a "Ninja sword".
Last amnesty a company handed in 1.5 million machetes and claimed the compensation for them despite importing the weapons themselves in the weeks before the ban. Pure profiteering.
I hope the police have learned something but somehow doubt they have.
I hope they haven't.
Ninja swords are not actually a real thing, so what exactly is this banning?
2.4. The legal definition that we tested as part of this consultation was as follows:
A fixed bladed article with a blade between 14-24 inches (the length of the blade being the straight-line distance from the top of the handle to the tip of the blade) with:
(i) A single straight cutting edge; and;
(ii) A tanto style point - by tanto style point, we mean a point which is created by the cutting-edge changing direction in a short (relative to the overall length of the blade) straight line, with an angle (between the primary long cutting edge and secondary short cutting edge at the tip) greater than 90 degrees and continuing up to form a point of less than 90 degree, where the secondary short cutting edge meets the spine. The secondary short cutting edge should not deviate in length more than 5% more or less than the width of the blade immediately after the hilt; or
(iii) A reversed tanto style point – by reverse tanto style point, we mean a point which is created by the cutting-edge changing direction in a short (relative to the overall length of the blade) straight line, with an angle (between the primary long cutting edge and secondary short cutting edge at the tip) less than 90 degrees and continuing up to form a point of greater than 90 degree, where the secondary short cutting edge meets the spine. The secondary short cutting edge should not deviate in length more than 5% more or less than the width of the blade immediately after the hilt.
Wait, does this mean i can continue to carry my broadsword?
And my axe!
And your brother!
So what about blades 13 inches or 25 inches in length?
They do not appear to be banned under this legislation.
Why are they banning knives and swords category by category (e.g., zombie knives, ninja swords) instead of a broader ban?
To just piss off a small group at a time.
It's quite effective if you want to roll out unpopular things, keep the scope small and start with obvious things that most people agree with, then keep expanding using previous legislation as foundation.
They are responding to crimes being committed. This helps, and minimises the scope of the law. But, it doesn’t solve root cause.
Performance art.
Anything in the UK carried for the intent to harm another person is a weapon. I do lots of low impact woodland/forest work. Axes, saws etc. in my bag. If I carried them to a Birmingham park to murder someone they would be weapons and not allowed. If I carry them into a woodland I have a contract to manage, they are tools and allowed.
These extra rules/laws don't change the above. The swords could still have been outlawed as weapons by the legal system.
But... doing this means the perl clutches can sleep easy knowing "something is being done"
It just occurred to me maybe the headline is about sword-owners who are ninjas, which totally changes the meaning.
For the first time in my life I am truly incentivised to go on a quest to steal a sword.
I'm sure there a strange woman lying in a pond somewhere that can be of assistance.
So does mean samurai swords too, those decorative ones I have on a three tier mount like these?
https://www.southernswords.co.uk/samurai-three-sword-table-stand.html
Googled what a tanto end is and I'm unsure if it applies to them. Help?
No, you don't have anything wink wink
......closes curtains permanently.......
Oi, yew got a curtain loicense?
This "joke" has been co-opted by xenophobic conservative Americans so often that I really struggle to appreciate it, even when you use it rather innocently like here. I'm not even a Brit and have grown quite tired of it. It comes from the same bag as cheese eating surrender monkeys for the French.
Look, they get to make fun of us for our shootings, we get to make fun of them for their loicenses for everything. It's a fair trade.
That's actually xenophobic because the French kick ass when they feel like it. Hell, they're basically the only reason America won independence.
I'm all for friendly ribbing, just a bit tired of this particular one because I saw it used in unsavoury ways too many times (I'd probably argue the same about school shootings jabs, even if that's a bit different). Just spreading a bit of awareness about it, I could tell you weren't being mean or actually using this as a xenophobic argument, but others before you have.
If they're blunt or made before 1954, you're good.
As a curved blade I think they're all already banned, so this law does nothing to you
https://archive.ph/77tll