Uk sword ban

[paulb]

All

I have copied below a mail from Jim Gilberts board. This was posted by my colleague from the Northern Token society and is I think self explanitory. If you have any questions regarding the content please either contact Dave at the address provided or mail me.

thanks

Paul

Dear List members,

First of all let me apologise for taking up bandwidth time on the discussion group, however I wanted to drop a line to all those concerned people in the sword collecting fraternity both in the U.K. and around the world. As I am sure all of you will know the U.K. home office has been charged with the task of creating the legislation document which will aim to ban Japanese swords (and quite possibly any other edged sword). The home office have published their consultation document and are inviting comments on 7 specific questions posed. As this is a public consultation document it will invite all kinds of comments from inside and outside of the sword collecting world.

 

The Northern Token Society (U.K.) have been actively involved with the home office to help inform and guide them in order to help shape what we hope will be a positive outcome. Our chairman Mr Ian Bottomley, Secretary Mr Steve Smith along with Paul Bowman and myself have been having dialogue via phone, Email and have met with the very people at the home office who are creating the legislation in which we had a very productive meeting discussing at length the definition of a Japanese sword amongst other issues (many of the points raised have been incorporated into the consultation document). There are links to all our correspondance and a link to the home office consultation document on our web site http://www.northerntokenso ciety.co. uk for those wish to have a read and reply to the home office.

 

I would ask that everyone who has not as yet done so to reply tho the Home office with answers to the questions posed on the consultation document but please understand that this process is now about the home office collating the responses into 3 groups. 1. Yes answers. 2. No answers. and finally 3. No clear opinion. So please be definite. Your answer can then be justified with a further statement and explaination as you see fit, once again apologies if I am stating the obvious but this part is important to the final outcome.

 

Finally just to outline what we believe will be the home office 'preferred' outcome, this will be:-

 

1. An inclusion on the banned weapons list of Japanese swords (and possibly other edged weapons dependant on how the definition is framed)

 

2. Exemptions for original Japanese swords (the definition they are working with covers all Japanese swords from all periods right up to modern day.

 

3. Exemptions for legitamate use of swords ie. Martial arts, re-enactment, theatre etc.

 

This of course is not a guaranteed outcome but rest assured we will be doing all we can as a society to

 

The perfect outcome for us all would be that the Japanese sword does not appear on the banned weapons list but realistically I cannot see this happening. so the exemption route seems the most exceptable to the home office and to all us sword collectors.

 

Thanks for taking time out to read this and please reply to the consultation document.

 

If anyone wants any further info than please feel free to Email me direct if you wish at d.fuller30@ntlworld .com

 

Kind regards

 

David Fuller Executive Officer, Northern Token Society (U.K.)

[Brian]

This copied from the yahoo group:

 

It is 2 weeks from today that the consultation from the Home Office closes, which means all responses must be in by this date. Please, if you have not already answered the 7 questions on the consultation paper, which may be found at http://www.homeoffice.gov.org do so urgently. This can be done by e-mail or with hard copy. It is important that as many iindividuals answer as possible, even if your "organisation" has already done so on your behalf - numbers count!

If you need any guidance, the To-ken Society of GB's response is shown on our website http://www.to-ken.com. Please do not leave it and be too late, do it now, and you don't have to be a UK resident to respond. If you require acknowledgement that your response has been recieved, please ask for one as this will not be done automatically.

Clive Sinclaire

 

Brian

[sencho]

Hi Brian,

 

I think that link is wrong.... try

 

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk

 

or

 

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/about-us/h ... ultations/

 

I think it is the offensive weapons bit. I guess the questions are in the adobe pdf file.... then you answer in the form of an email to the email address provided.

Cheers