Arizonans in good standing are allowed to carry guns in public without licenses. But go out of the house with your nunchucks, those exotic Okinawan peasant weapons popular in movies and video games, and you’re breaking the law.
It seemed to Arizona lawmakers like a classic case of overcriminalization, and they stepped in. GOP Gov. Doug Ducey has just signed a law repealing the state’s longstanding ban on nunchucks, or nunchaku. The rare implements, which supposedly descend from farm tools used to fight at close quarters centuries ago, had been placed on a list of deadly weapons — including machine guns and explosives — that are a felony to manufacture or possess.
According to news accounts, the ban on nunchucks had come about during the 1970s as foreign martial arts films were becoming hugely popular. It was not in response to some nunchuck-fueled crime wave.
Although most of the lawmakers who supported repealing the ban were Republicans, some Democrats joined in as well. “I don’t believe that we are going to see a sudden spike in the use of nunchucks in violent crime,” said state Rep. Jennifer Longdon, a Democrat representing Chandler, Ariz., and a former martial arts instructor.
Arizona’s attorney general, Mark Brnovich, responded to the good news by posting a video of himself wielding the specialty weapon on Twitter. “Clearly,” he wrote, “my years of martial arts training paid off. Pulled my old nunchaku out of storage … like riding a bike. #WayOfTheDragon.”
Nunchucks remain illegal until 90 days after the bill’s signing, and so Brnovich’s video technically shows him in violation. But more important than that legalistic observation is the fact that, as the video shows, he’s really quite good at using nunchucks.
