Thursday, December 13, 2007

Killer Ninjas plague London

Well, no, not really:
The government said Wednesday it would ban the sale of samurai swords because the weapons had been used in a number of serious, high-profile attacks.

The Home Office said the swords would be added to the Offensive Weapons Order from April next year, meaning they could not be imported, sold or hired.

However collectors of genuine Japanese swords and those used by martial arts enthusiasts would be exempt from the ban.

"In the wrong hands, samurai swords are dangerous weapons," Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said.

"We recognize it is the cheap, easily available samurai swords which are being used in crime and not the genuine more expensive samurai swords which are of interest to collectors and martial arts enthusiasts."
This is a bad idea. Because when you outlaw samurai swords, only outlaws will have samurai swords. And collectors and martial arts enthusiasts, too, I guess. Which is a little less problematic, unless some of those collectors and martial arts enthusiasts are also outlaws. Yeah.

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