56

You think you are in the 21st century think about the 16th century. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_hunt

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Darrell_Winfield@lemmy.world 36 points 5 days ago

Yes, they are literally called Ninja swords in the legislation.

Yes, it is hilarious.

[-] Kolanaki@pawb.social 18 points 5 days ago

"This is a samurai sword, I'll have you know. 😤"

[-] tal@lemmy.today 7 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

This "Ninja sword" is apparently a straight sword:

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;

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

Samurai and other curved Swords

On April 6th 2008 a law came into effect banning samurai and other curved swords with a blade length of 50 cm or more; there are some exceptions for registered martial artists, re-enactors and even certain genuine Japanese swords.

Here is to the law:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/import-controls-on-offensive-weapons#importing-knives-swords-and-other-offensive-weapons-into-the-uk

An amendment to this act was passed, which came into effect on the 1st of August 2008. It allows curved and samurai swords which are handmade using traditional forging/production methods to be sold without a license.

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".

this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2025
56 points (98.3% liked)

United Kingdom

4613 readers
250 users here now

General community for news/discussion in the UK.

Less serious posts should go in !casualuk@feddit.uk or !andfinally@feddit.uk
More serious politics should go in !uk_politics@feddit.uk.

Try not to spam the same link to multiple feddit.uk communities.
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.

Posts should be related to UK-centric news, and should be either a link to a reputable source, or a text post on this community.

Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread.

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS