The Gaming Den

random question.

I've heard that a person trained in martial arts can, in the US, obtain a special insurance/license that, among other things, acts as a concealed carry license for certain weapons and, I guess, authorizes use of some amount of force or the like.

Anyone able to shine some light on this? I occasionally carry knives for my own piece of mind and have been trained in martial arts, and would like this little piece of paper to show police should it ever be necessary...

...oh yeah, that's just great. Not just random paranoid guy with knives, guy who aspires to be a random paranoid guy with knives and a license to kill like he saw on James Bond that time.

Great. Just great. Everyone needs more of that on the streets. Nothing could ever possibly go wrong with this plan.

I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is:

1. Actual (non-firearms) weapons restrictions are usually at the local or state level and can vary drastically in different locales. You would be better served to contact your local police / government / an attorney than to ask on a message board.

2. Specifics of such statutes aside - proving intent can be a key point in court cases. If you happen to carve someone up with a hook sword while on the way to the kung fu class that you go to every week it's plausible that it could have been in self defense or a crime of passion as you were presumably carrying the sword for purposes of the class. If instead you carve someone up with the same hook sword outside a nightclub at closing time then it's very likely you were carrying the hook sword for the purpose of assaulting someone at that nightclub and have therefore committed a deliberate and premeditated crime.

Actually, PL, I aspire to be a chef, an artist and a writer, who occasionally contributes to role playing games. What the fuck do you aspire to be? Other than a dick, I mean, you seem to have achieved that quite handily.

Yes, I tend towards a bit of paranoia, and yes, I like carrying weapons, hell, I like owning weapons, however, the most violence I've perpetrated against someone, provoked or not is to shove someone up against a door in high school, I am not some idiot who flies off the handle and assaults every person who annoys me (as much as I may like to sometime). I prefer to talk quietly and confidently and get my point across through making sure the person understands that I'm serious, even if I have deliberately placed myself below their eye level.

I am a trained martial artist, which means I am armed at pretty much all times. Sure, I may not be doing much against a person armed with a gun who is more than a couple paces away, but I am already armed, and know of quite a few people who have the kind of license I'm talking about. I figure I might as well get the damned thing. What I've been trained in may come in handy some day and having a card to show to the police may make things go a lot more smoothly.

So, anyway, PL, fuck you.

Josh_Kablack wrote:I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is:

1. Actual (non-firearms) weapons restrictions are usually at the local or state level and can vary drastically in different locales. You would be better served to contact your local police / government / an attorney than to ask on a message board.

Eh, I'm still at the level of "I can't fucking remember what it's called and want to see if I can find out, and learn what it entails"

2. Specifics of such statutes aside - proving intent can be a key point in court cases. If you happen to carve someone up with a hook sword while on the way to the kung fu class that you go to every week it's plausible that it could have been in self defense or a crime of passion as you were presumably carrying the sword for purposes of the class. If instead you carve someone up with the same hook sword outside a nightclub at closing time then it's very likely you were carrying the hook sword for the purpose of assaulting someone at that nightclub and have therefore committed a deliberate and premeditated crime.

and it's more like a simple folding knife that I occasionally carry. Though I usually leave it at home, especially when going to a club or some such.

Even if you have a permit for a concealed weapon, there isn't any piece of paper of any sort that authorizes use of force.

You are allowed to defend yourself or others if necessary, but be prepared to justify that necessity afterwards. You're almost always better off being non-violent.

Josh is quite correct. If you intend to carry a concealed weapon then you should investigate your local laws regarding concealed weapons. It is likely that you are committing a crime yourself by doing so. Laws vary from state to state, and often from city to city.

For the last decade or so of my life I have lived and worked in high crime areas where people who go to the same stores and walk the same routes as me have been assaulted, robbed or murdered, so I understand the desire to want to safeguard yourself somehow, but endangering your freedom isn't really the optimal way to do it. Stay in well traveled and well lit areas. Travel in groups if possible. Minimize your risks.

Alternatively, just don't carry something big enough to be considered a weapon in the eyes of the law. The pocketknife I carry around with me is about four inches. Anything under 4.5 inches isn't considered a consealed weapon in these parts.


Edit: And yes, I do consider the four inch knife to be plenty of protection for myself with my habits and my lifestyle.

clikml wrote:Even if you have a permit for a concealed weapon, there isn't any piece of paper of any sort that authorizes use of force.

Unless you're talking something like a bounty-hunter license, where in the right situation, you're allowed to use force.

Prak_Anima wrote:So, anyway, PL, fuck you.

I'm not the one who carries around weapons in the hope of one day stabbing someone in a perfectly legitimate and fully licensed manner.

"But I'm a fine upstanding citizen who is in complete control of himself, COMPLETE AAAAARGH COMPLETE I SAY" is not an excuse for openly aspiring to be a literally card holding violent martial arts knife vigilante.

And the tone of your post does not inspire confidence in your anger management. Just as the entire direction of the thread from your opening post does not inspire confidence that you have the knowledge and wisdom to be going around running with scissors.

Prak_Anima wrote:Actually, PL, I aspire to be a chef, an artist and a writer, who occasionally contributes to role playing games. What the fuck do you aspire to be? Other than a dick, I mean, you seem to have achieved that quite handily.

Yes, I tend towards a bit of paranoia, and yes, I like carrying weapons, hell, I like owning weapons, however, the most violence I've perpetrated against someone, provoked or not is to shove someone up against a door in high school, I am not some idiot who flies off the handle and assaults every person who annoys me (as much as I may like to sometime). I prefer to talk quietly and confidently and get my point across through making sure the person understands that I'm serious, even if I have deliberately placed myself below their eye level.

I am a trained martial artist, which means I am armed at pretty much all times. Sure, I may not be doing much against a person armed with a gun who is more than a couple paces away, but I am already armed, and know of quite a few people who have the kind of license I'm talking about. I figure I might as well get the damned thing. What I've been trained in may come in handy some day and having a card to show to the police may make things go a lot more smoothly.

So, anyway, PL, fuck you.

Chill out, Internet Tough Guy, or you might just have to put on your Internet Brass Knuckles and give somebody in this thread an Internet Bruise!

Prak_Anima wrote:and know of quite a few people who have the kind of license I'm talking about. I figure I might as well get the damned thing.

So if you know the people who have that license, why come here and ask if it exists?

And what's with that "I'm martial artist, so I'm always armed" thing? I know a lot of guys who train something. No-one carries any weapons when going around town.

Two questions:

1. Why should a martial artist need a weapon? Can't they just use a level 3 Shinkuu Hadouken on their enemies? (Read as: shouldn't they be just as competent at disabling an attacker regardless of whether they are holding a knife?)

2. Plenty of people, Prak included, are being dicks, here, and the only reason I'm not is I can't think of anything dickish to say. Is it just a global "Everyone be a wanker" day or something?

Yes, Koumei, it is wanker day.

Regarding martial artists being "always armed," frankly, the thing is, that martial arts can do very little against a gun and that if you get serious martial arts training you realize early on that they are not telling you how to win a fight against a knife-wielder in a way that most would consider "winning" to be honest, they are only telling you how to take nonfatal damage against a knife-wielder. If the teacher is serious and not a showboating blowhard, he will probably acknowledge early on how boned a knife or gun is going to make anyone in the classroom, including himself. He still knows techniques that are designed to take away a knife or gun, but it's just that... take away. The fight is winnable only when you've stopped the other person from wielding the weapon, which may be after taking some damage in the case of a knife especially (possibly multiple punctures/slashes, but at least you aren't dead), or risking nigh-certain death in the case of a gun.

However, in spite of having said this, I would personally recommend people interested in self-defense get some good martial arts lessons anyways. Because the lessons they learn will help them survive a fight, and more importantly, if they do enough actual sparring and are sharp on the draw, they will learn how to not lose their weapon. At which point they can pick up a knife or gun and hold on to it rather than having it taken away from them and used to kill them. A lot of the martial arts techniques I was talking about earlier, while risky and often ineffective, rely on the fact that a knife can hurt its wielder or a gun can shoot its owner... so when you enter a fight with a gun in your possession, you are actually posing a threat to yourself, which I would consider unacceptable if precautionary measures were not taken. Not that all assailants have black belts and are masters of disarming their opponents, but rather it doesn't actually require such training to make the attempt, it just improves your chances... and you don't want to be on the receiving end of a lucky break, because the thing that will be breaking is you.

Oh, I'm not saying there's a "parry bullets" technique or anything, if they have a gun pointed at you you're kind of fucked because they can squeeze the trigger before you can perform a meaningful action. Maybe your best bet is Drunken Kung Fu, because you're already staggering about in an erratic manner so they can't keep it aimed on you.

But in the above situation a knife won't help you either. Come to think of it, if your opponent is polite enough to just use a knife, then if you pull out a knife all you've done is even the playing field - you're both armed, it's just a matter of "who can stab the other in the face/throat first?" If you have a black belt at sashimi, trained at Wel Hung dojo, Long Wang province, well, you should have an easier time taking their knife away (and when that happens, you can cockdrop them and they are a silly man with no knife).

My sister always carries a scalpel with her. It has helped to drive off drunks on numerous occasions. As for firearms, one should have served in the army or something to use them effectively, otherwise it would just attract potential assaulters who'd be only happy to rob you of a gun in addition to a wallet.

Back when I first started to work with MPGN (before we moved to Key West) there was a player who had a full time job as an Emergency Room surgeon in NYC. The game developers used to meet with him and a few others at a NYC bar on occasion. Apparently, one night while drinking and playig darts he decided to use his scapel instead of the dart.

There is no license to hurt people, and concealed weapon permits are locality-dependent.

Most martial arts weapons are flat-out illegal in the US, and non-fixed knives like balisongs, gravity knives and switchblades have spotty legality.

Googling "concealed knife law" turned up a lot of hits. If you seriously want to sport a blade then you need to do your research.

1. Why should a martial artist need a weapon?

Because martial arts is not limited to bare-handed combat.

There are various traditions of weapons elements in various martial arts going back to likely Alexander the great.

The five weapons of Karate are derived as ways around the weapons bans on okinawa - since harvesting and threshing were still allowed, farm tools were adapted for martial use.

Various substyles of kung fu were developed at various times in history and actually intended to be used in warfare, so various styles teach the use of various ancient weapons.

And even Queensbury boxers wear gloves to protect their hands - those gloves can be considered a weapon.

Sounds like the typical bullshit boast "I'm so good at kicking ass that my fists are registered as deadly weapons!" Yeah, right.

to answer the question, no such thing exists, these people are fucking with you.

And except as a form of exercise or for improving mental focus, martial arts are a waste of fucking time. There are benefits but don't think it makes a goddamn bit of difference in a fight, seeing as how you are at a computer instead of spending 14 hours a day in training, you're not really any better at fighting that most people (although I have heard people with small amounts of martial arts training are actually worse off than people who haven't had any, because you have unlearned natural defense reactions but not replaced them with trained reactions yet.)

Josh_Kablack wrote: Because martial arts is not limited to bare-handed combat.

Okay, then how many focus on using switch-blades as opposed to the naginata, katana, three-piece-serpent-staff, chain whip, paired sai, nunchaku, burning fans, garotte, wobbly sword and so on?

USMC Full contact has extensive bayonet training, as well as striking with the rifle itself in emergency situations. I believe people who train in Krav Maga work in some combat knife training when they're not practicing new and innovative ways to kick people in the nuts or gang-kidnap people.

And most modern fighting styles use modern weapons. Archaic weapons are cool but impractical. I mean, I have a danish axe hanging off my bedroom wall but it would be silly to carry it around, it just looks cool.

Krav Maga training is better suited for the real world. Make sure that you have a certified trainer; there are a lot of people who were trained in Krav Maga, but are not certified trainers.

It's not hyper focused about techniques, and more about the thinking needed to perform types of tasks. Doing a throw or hold in most martial arts requires the target to be willing, and not fighting the movement. Watching people 'fighting' for stuff like Akido is... ridiculous in terms of them being meant to be examples of combat.

Ugh. Shoot this conversation in the fucking head. Don't take martial arts advice from nerds, especially gaming nerds who endlessly attempt to recreate combat with abstract rules.

Go to bullshido or a dog brothers forum and chat this shit up. It's flat-out embarrassing to read this shit here. It's like listening to monkey s screech at each other about what makes a good OS. It's just pathetic and evokes a deep, spiritual sense of SAD.

FUCK. Krav Maga. OMG ISREALI RBSD 4 REALZ 4 EVER. Fuck.

mean_liar wrote:It's flat-out embarrassing to read this shit here.

think how it feels to be the person who started this asinine thread...

mean_liar wrote:Ugh. Shoot this conversation in the fucking head. Don't take martial arts advice from nerds, especially gaming nerds who endlessly attempt to recreate combat with abstract rules.

Go to bullshido or a dog brothers forum and chat this shit up. It's flat-out embarrassing to read this shit here. It's like listening to monkey s screech at each other about what makes a good OS. It's just pathetic and evokes a deep, spiritual sense of SAD.

FUCK. Krav Maga. OMG ISREALI RBSD 4 REALZ 4 EVER. Fuck.

Yes, but make sure you tell them you study Wing Chun and Aikido and you study for the street, not sport.