Mis representation by the Media...

Here's one to get off my chest.......

I hate how Martial Artists are totally misrepresented by the press in the effort to glorify a story.

A recent one that got my goat was......

QUOTE
Karate nut stabs PCSO in neck


When you read the story the 'nut' involved was in his 60's that hadn't been training for nearly 40 years, but it made a good headline.

It;s because of gutter journalism like this that we are often smeared with s*&t.

Look at the proposed sword ban..........

The Police admit that is a very small proportion of crimes that actually involve a weapon like this, but when it does our gutter press likes to blow things all out of proportion.

QUOTE
The mother of a Middlesbrough man killed with a samurai sword has vowed to get bladed weapons banned in the UK.
Thirty-one-year-old father Robert Dunne was murdered in January 2003.

Jason Kelly, who was 19, was jailed for life after pleading guilty to murdering Mr Dunne with the 12-inch blade


12 inch sword? Ah a short sword............kodachi, wakizashi ?

Not quite clear there are they...

QUOTE
The UK's Home Office today issued a consultation paper ahead of legislation intended to ban Samurai blades by the end of the year. In a bid to "protect the public", replica Samurai swords will become illegal to import, sell and hire in Britain.
Breaching the new rules could mean six months in prison, and a £5,000 fine. Anyone carrying such a weapon in public could faces up to four years in prison, the consultation paper suggests.


This is already law. it is ILLEGAL to take a blade into a public space.

QUOTE
A consultation recommends that replica samurai swords should be added to the offensive weapons order, meaning the sale, hire and import would be prohibited.

There have been approximately 80 serious crimes involving imitation samurai swords in England and Wales over the last four years.

"We recognise 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 art enthusiasts. As such as we are putting forward exemptions for these groups.


What about replica sabres, broadswards, claymores, rapiers, etc, etc?

How cheap is cheap ?

Right thats me getting off my soap box. I do tend to get eaten up over this topic (reaches for his book on Zen). It does affect me quite a lot if this goes ahead.

Personally if I pay £3,000 for a blade the last thing I will be doing with it is cutting something LOL :-)

merlyn

Well merlyn you have some very good and valid points here. Your right in all you say and the media always gloryify everythin they print.

to be honest i'm just about p*ssed off with this f*cking nanny state we live in , the reason we have the problems that we have in this country is because no one is aloud to do anything and if they do it get's reported in a paparazi ,blown out of proportion manner .
with the public being ripped into a state of hysteria over sod all .
we are gunna end up being clones in a country runn by idiots.

cheers
matt

the police actually confiscated my ninja commando sword and refused to let me have it back......even thou i was licenced..they said i wasnt responsiable enough to have it .like u what.(gens mum!)

revenge of the gen!

now this is somethin i heard before. Can you please tell us why it was taken ie was u outside in the street

even thou i was licenced..


What licence are you talking about?
merlyn

You are entitled to go to the police station and ask for a good reason for them not allowin you to have it and if u can prove beyond reasonable dout that you only have it for training purposes they are legally not allowed to take it off you and if you are lienced thats even better and may be a letter from your instructor

it was taken by my ex partner to his friends house who knew it was mine.....and he handed it over to the police, who refused to let me have it back......they said i could have it bcak if i got my instructer(that was you at the time matt lol)
to go and get it but i wasnt at home during this time as i was in hospital with my little girl.when i got back they told me they had destroyed it........and ur right i reckon it was illegal what they did as they knew it was mine and didnt have a good reason for taking it off me other than my ex claiming it scared him....

revenge of the gen!

u could have had him charged him with theft

hi peeps
sorry aint been about much ,busy getting the venue ready.
it's difficult , there is a legal system in place to save us , to insure our safety , and protect us from nutters , sadly it does get sidetracked and missled.

but lets change things around here and look at it in a different way .
lets say you are a " non martial artist" ignorant to our world..
and some f*ckwit mugs an olg granny in a ninja suit wielding a ninja sword .
extreme but hey !!!!! there was a guy that raided a church stark bollok naked with a sword just a couple of years ago , or the guy who decapitated another in the street a year ago , or in our local towm yeovil a polish chap tried to disimbowl another ( ohh yes) you can say " BUT THESE ARNT MARTIAL ARTISTS" no but joe public dont know the difference .

just because a guy dont have a driving licence , dont mean he cant kill dinking and driving.

as joe public , how would you view this , and lets say it was a member of your family attacked .

now i do stand by my word , it is a shite law , and missleading.

but people are hysterical , fear mongering and paraniod .

i just think they should invest their time in pedo's and weirdo's ,

again , if you where a non artist , would you want some strange dude with a weird suit and loads of affencive weapons that can kill or maim living next to you.

in my local town ,some of you local to me will know who i speak of biggrin.gif , there is a chap "paul hall " this chap does his shopping in a kung fu suit (yep he does), and stands around learing at people and practiceing his arts in public (at the local park) .this is the face of martial arts that joe public think of .
i banned him from my clubs ( and dis associated myself from him).

like i said it is a crap law , i hate this nanny state , but we do live in a nation if freaks and extremists ( not a religeous slurr) , and some of our actions to the outside world may be weird .
also you have to think of the chavs that go on ebay and buy a sword and use the fu*kin thing .

so it is a tricky one .
what they need to do make it so only the artists will have them , and by putting a high price on the swords we can own it means only the dedicated will have them .

just a differents point of view maybe ,not saying it's mine just a different point .

cheers
matt

read this

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article501811.ece

martial arts does have a purpose

If they're going to ban swords, why not ban guns? Butcher knives? Axes? I'm sure people have been killed by a wood-chopping ax.


That's what bothers me most about that type of law. People will always find something to kill with if they really mean to kill. Most people with a Katana or other weapon use them responsibly.

It's a strange society we live in.


- Mortron

QUOTE
If they're going to ban swords, why not ban guns?


They did :-)

After the Dunblaine sgootings in 1998 or was it 99.

The government decide after a public outcry to ban all automatic and semi automatic pistols. They did this around about 2000 ( I belevie)

So for the law abiding majority, we have been unable to shoot for almost 10 years....

Yet how many people have been shot and killed by the criminals this year alone?

In an effort to try and remove weapons from teh streets the Government punish the law abiding.

Criminals are going to get these weapons wether they are legal or not.

And with the sword ban coming into force in April...every man and his chimp thats watch 'The Last Samurai' and thinks he;s a swordsman will dash out and buy one before the ban comes in.

So instead of reducubg the numbers of swords in peoples hands....this muppet Givernment of ours is going to put thousands of swords onto the streets.

God Bless Democracy !!!!!!

merlyn

hi
i think the ban came about because of un scroupulous idiots selling them on market stalls ect .
the truth is these are offecive weapons and are dangerous in the WRONG hands .

yes it is tru you can kill with any item you could think of , fork , spoon , pencil ect

the problem is you don't get chav's that have been to their local maket or ebay and think they are chuffin ninjas running round with a pencil trying to kill people .

also yes you can kill with ya bare hands but we have become hardend to this type of violence .

like i said before would you like some abusive word with a sword that he brought off a mate , liveing next door to you and your kid's !!!!

the problem here is not the banning of anything it is just that we have spent so much of our live's being dictated to that a majority of the population have no idea ow to regulate their own lives .

again as i said before this is not neciceraly my opinion , just A opinion .

cheers
matt

I don;t think it is necessarily those selling the wepaons (although it certainly doesn;t help).

Most of it is down to the gutter press sensationalising story to sell papers.

Anyone that is injured is a sword attack seems automatically to have been attacked with a 'samurai sword'

The woman who championed the ban lost a son to a gang related sword killing. He was killed with a 'samurai sword'.

When you read the small print it was a 12 inch blade which certainly is not a samurai sword.

I was listening to an interveiw with her on the radio. She claims that these swords are being carried by gangs to induce fear into people.

When she was asked if the swords wear already banned does she think this gang wols be carrying a different wweapon and that her son would have been killed with that?

She replied 'Yes'

So banning swords wouldn;t have made a blind bit of difference to this womans son, he;d still be dead.

So the question begs to be asked.......what gets banned next?

The remark about democracy !!!!!!!

This act was passed by the House of Lords....who are not democratically voted in.

This act was passed to them by a Prime Minister who is in office 'through the back door' as I don;t see him having been voted into office by the public either !!!!

Soz...rant mode's kicked in...........

I just fail to see why I have to have my behavior modified and lifestyle changed cos the tossers in power can;t punish criminals properly :-)

merlyn

very true mate , eventually everything will be banned .


this is a very tricky subject tho .

one of my mate owns a sword supplyers .

altho i really like andy , he's a great chap .
but i have never hidden my opinion , selling sword on a market stall is wrong , and small curiosity shops across our great nation.
most of the time they are sold alond side bongs and drug related merchandise .
it does atract the wrong people .there is a shop in my local town that sells , sword set's , knives , bongs , jumbo rizla , canabis related stuff .
and they will do the wrong thing with these toy's , and thats what they are is toy's , not swords .
they are low quality trash with a sharpened edge .
it's like calling a morris minnor a sports car , a ferrari is a sports car.

but either way it's another blow to our freedom , thanks to our chav nation

shame .

anyway i think i have coverd every point of view.

cheers
matt

QUOTE
anyway i think i have coverd every point of view.


Aye......I'll put the soap box away..........FOR NOW...mmuuhhhaaaaaaa

merlyn

this was in todays sun

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article670772.ece