‘Ninja Swords’ Now On the UK’s Ban List Along With ‘Stealth Knives’ and ‘Zombie Knives’

The United Kingdom has a long history of exerting control over its subjects, especially when it comes to depriving them of arms. It also has a weird history, albeit a shorter one, of an apparent dislike of Japanese culture when it comes to arms. The latest example of this comes in the form of a recently passed ban on what the Brits refer to as “ninja swords.”

As is often the case in weapons crackdowns, this ban arose from a single, atypical crime. A teenage boy, Ronan Kanda, was killed by another teenage boy who used a “ninja sword” to commit the murder. The killer and an accomplice were both convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Neither perpetrator, it should be said, was Japanese, nor apparently a ninja.

But, as is often the case in England, the tool used to commit the crime—along with anyone who legally possessed one—also faced consequences.

There is no real history of “ninja swords.” Not, at least, in the context of Japanese or British culture or arms. There is a long, storied history of many other weapons that are immediately identified as being of Japanese origin, including widely recognized swords like the katana or other martial arts implements like the shuriken.

The katana is the sword most people visualize when thinking about what a samurai carries. Shuriken, or throwing stars, are probably the weapon most people associate with the cinematic depiction of ninjas; small, flat metal plates with sharp edges or points that can be thrown—often with great accuracy in the hands of someone with years of training and practice.

These items, along with numerous other martial arts tools, have long, documented histories in Japan and the Japanese culture. The “ninja sword,” on the other hand, appears to be an invention of the 20^th Century.

So…why ban “ninja swords?” Vivid descriptors, even if inaccurate, can help sensationalize and marginalize inanimate objects. Much like anti-gun extremists in the U.S. invent terms to mischaracterize firearms they wish to ban—like “assault weapon,” “Saturday night special,” and “ghost gun”—in the UK, a similar strategy is often used when trying to ban edged weapons (firearms have been increasingly out of reach to the average Brit for decades).

If you peruse the list of prohibited knives and weapons in the UK, you will find that the Brits have interestingly-named categories of banned items, such as “disguised knife,” “stealth knife,” and “zombie knife.” Also of note, however, are the numerous prohibited items that originated in Japan.

Most of these items were developed hundreds of years ago; some, perhaps, more than a thousand. Many, if not most, also require a great deal of skill in order to be used effectively. Some are even so obscure that one wonders how or why they were banned.

For example, there is the prohibited “kyoketsu soge,” described in the UK as “a hook-knife fastened to one end of a piece of rope, cord, chain or wire.” It is unlikely most have ever seen such an item used anywhere except in the movies, or maybe at a Japanese martial arts exhibition. Even those who watch a lot of movies that include a great deal of martial arts, even those set in feudal Japan, probably don’t see these things very often. And the skill and training required to become even slightly proficient with it is likely daunting to most.

But the Brits banned it. Was there a time in England when these were widely used to commit crimes?

Another prohibited item is the “kusari gama,” described in the UK as “a sickle fastened to one end of a piece of rope, cord, chain or wire.”  Everything said about the “kyoketsu soge” can be said about the “kusari gama.”

Then there is what the British call the “kusari or ‘manrikigusari,’” which is more commonly known as the kusari-fundo.  Described under British prohibition as “a hard weight or hand grip fastened to each end of a piece of rope, cord, chain or wire,” everything said about the “kyoketsu soge” and the “kusari gama” also applies with this item.

The aforementioned shuriken is also on the banned list.  Katanas are not specifically named as being banned but would generally fall under the ban on “swords,” provided the katana is more than 50 cm (just under 20 inches) in length.

So, do the British have a problem with the Japanese?  That’s hard to say, but they do seem to have a problem with Japanese martial arts implements.  That is likely traced back to at least the 1980s.  That’s when the American children’s cartoon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, was gaining worldwide popularity.  In England, though, they changed the name to Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, and edited the use of nunchaku, commonly identified with Okinawa and Japan.  Use of nunchaku was also edited in another kids’ cartoon of the ‘80s, ThunderCats. And while the incomparable Bruce Lee was American by birth and Chinese by descent, his iconic nunchaku scenes were apparently edited out of UK versions of what was arguably his most famous and influential movie, .

So, while nunchaku were growing in visibility through some media in the ‘80s, the British apparently thought they posed a threat. Curiously, though, they did not ban nunchaku but decided to ban all the obscure items of Japanese origin previously mentioned.

It was 1988 when the UK cracked down on what they deemed “offensive weapons.” Yet the very idea of an “offensive” weapon is absurd. If a ninja sword is used on the attack, it is offensive. If it’s used to thwart an attack, it is defensive. This could be said of anything, from a rock to a club to a semi-automatic rifle. Whether a weapon is offensive or defensive is more likely to be situational than determined by some inherent design characteristic.

Ultimately, it is difficult to determine what drives UK policy when it comes to regulating what are little more than tools or cultural artifacts. But since murder and assault have been banned in England since time immemorial, the piecemeal approach of “blame it on the weapon” may simply be a symbolic gesture of “doing something” by an inept government that is presiding over the wholesale deterioration of its nation’s culture. They might as well outlaw bleeding and dying by the victims.

The young thug who committed the murder that inspired this “ninja sword” ban had no problem breaking the weapons carrying law—not to mention the law prohibiting murder—so it is unlikely future violent criminals (or even ninja assassins) will care about the extra prohibition.  Criminals, by their very nature, break the law, so adding yet another prohibition to the books is unlikely to change their behavior.

As a final point to ponder is that Japan, one of the most restrictive countries when it comes to the possession of weapons of any type, does not ban swords, whether named “ninja” or otherwise.  They do require them to be registered, but there are over 2 million of them in legal possession, and they do not seem to be experiencing the problems that England is having.

Could it be something other than the swords (and the shuriken and the kusari gama and the manrikigusari and so on and so forth) that would contribute to the tendency of one teenager in Britain to murder another?