Rerun: Swordplay

The Daily Telegraph, a UK-based newspaper, is reporting that by the end of the year the UK could ban the sale of imitation samurai swords. According to the article, in the last four years there have been over 80 serious crimes committed with swords in England and Wales. Currently, it’s not illegal to own or sale a sword in the UK, but “brandishing” one in public place could very well land your ass in jail for up to four years.

There would be an exception in the bad for professional collectors or martial arts enthusiasts. Whew. And here I thought my trips to the UK would be ruined. If alls I gotta do to bring a blade into merry ”˜ole England is bring my black belt then I’m gold. Londoners, better watch your heads, ”˜cause as we all know, there can be only one. And I don’t intend to lose.

I think the UK is making an epic mistake here. I mean, you never know when you might have to grab your German-made sword, head upstairs, and heroically kick open your neighbor’s door to stop him from raping a screaming woman. Or to keep him from watching a totally hot porn. Either way.

What follows is a post that I wrote on May 11th of last year about this very subject. Enjoy the rerun:

According to the CDC National Center for Health Statistics 30,136 handgun related deaths occurred during 2003. Granted, suicides accounted for 16,907 of those deaths (56%), and the rest either resulted from homicides (11,920), unintentional shootings (730), and legal interventions/undetermined intent (347/232). No matter what the cause handguns accounted for a lot of dead people in 2003 (I couldn’t find any more recent data so 2003’ll haveta do).

I think I’ve come up with a really good solution to decreasing those numbers: Increased penalties for unregistered guns coupled with the complete and total legalization for carrying swords.

I can sense your confusion about the second part of my plan. Hear me out.

I’m a firm believer that the majority of the gun-nuts out there simply suffer from an overinflated sense of machismo, and hence, their desire to conceal a lethal weapon. However, there is no more macho a weapon than the sword. Phallicly a sword looks way more like a penis than a gun, so that should please a large number of the pro-gun crowd aesthetically and psychologically. Just look how that thing juts out”¦just waiting to penetrate a bad guy.

Also, swords are much more difficult to hide. I know I’d want to carry the biggest sword I could get my hands on, and I’m pretty sure other guys would, too. I’d hedge a pretty healthy bet that most guys would opt for the Scottish Claymore, or The Great Sword, to carry around. How could they not? Our manhood wouldn’t allow for anything smaller. Thankfully, large swords are pretty easy to spot, unless of course the wielder of the sword sports a large, black trench coat, just like the Highlander. Even if the sword handler takes to wearing a trench coat, in the summer we’d all know to keep our eyes on the dude in the leathers, who’s sweating like Ted Kennedy at an AA meeting. And in the winter the weather solves the problem of spotting them for us, because manipulating the hilt with frost-bitten fingers requires a lot more dexterity than squeezing a trigger.

I also think that by forcing attackers to come a little closer to their victim would perhaps make them think twice about committing murder. Think about it: Depending on your aim and your stock of bullets you could stand a block away and kill a whole crowd of people. You might not even see any blood from that distance. It’d be just like wasting people in a video game. That all changes with a sword. You gotta get up close and personal to kill someone with a sword. And forget about not seeing any blood. You take a slash or a thrust at someone with a sword and you’re gettin’ blood on your shoes. Probably lots of it, too. That kinda stuff tends to make even the most hardened criminal queasy.

Swords also take training to wield properly, unlike guns. Ever since “Duck Hunt” on the 8-bit Nintendo, children have been training to shoot guns. Not so with the sword. You ever hold a sword? You’d notice the weight of the weapon first. They’re pretty heavy. Even the one-handed ones, like rapiers, tire you out pretty quickly. Sword fighting also requires you to be in decent shape. Most people can’t outrun a bullet, but even a moderately healthy person possesses the ability to stay out of sword-range.

So that’s my plan: replace all guns with swords. Ideally we’d get the entire world to follow our trail-blazing lead, and that way even our military wouldn’t need guns anymore.

Whatta ya think?