Klingon bat'leth

lostintesco

Can anyone tell me about the legality of a klingon bat'leth in Ireland, I would love to buy one but before I do I want to see if its legal.

Tar.Aldarion

Ask the user dav, he has one

Pat Mustard

Those things don't seem to fall into any of the categories of offensive weapon*.

Therefore the ordinary knife law would apply, as set out in S.9 of Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act 1990.

Basically then, the law boils down to that it is illegal to have a knife or sharp blade in a public place without lawful authority or good reason. Use of said item at work or for a recreational purpose is a defence.

Therefore, in order to defend possession of such an object in a public place, one would have to be able to show:
-lawful authority, or,
-good reason, or,
-use at work, or,
-recreational purpose

Of course, such an item is not in a public place, if it is hanging on the wall in a persons' private living room.

*Offensive weapons include the following.

These include flick-knives, knuckledusters, swordsticks, sword umbrellas, hand and foot claws, belt buckle knives, pushdaggers, hollow kubotans, shurikens, butterfly knives, telescopic truncheons, blowpipes, kusari gama, kyoketsu shoge, manrikigusari, sap gloves, and machetes.
Katanas or 'samurai swords' were added with effect from 1 September 2009, though there are exceptions to the ban designed for collectors and martial artists. You can read the full text of the 1991 Order on offensive weapons here and the 2009 amendment to it here.

Threads on knives and blades have arisen several times before.
For example: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=53371480

LowKeyReturn

Is it made out of rubber?

lostintesco

Thanks for that The_Mustard. It doesn't seem to be covered anywhere there, I'm slightly less worried now. In the highly unlikely event that I did have to explain it, I think the fact that I'm a massive nerd would probably be enough.

LowKeyReturn wrote: »

Is it made out of rubber?

No, I'm looking for a metal one.

Shiminay

I have one, it was given to me as a gift. It took the person who gave it to me a week of talking to customs on the phone to get them cleared (he bought 4 as gifts for people including me). He called it a "decorative prop" rather than a weapon (which is what they were labelled as on the shipping docket).

Make no mistake though, it could easily be used as a weapon. It's 5mm thick stainless steel with edges, but not "battle ready" sharpened as you might get from other places. It's not the sort of thing you'd want to do anything other than hang on a wall for show - even without the sharpened edged, the weight of it + gravity if it slipped would be enough to do horrific injury to someone.

You will not get very far walking down the street with 4 and a half feet of stainless steel curved honour sword

I'll just leave this here:

Pat Mustard

Shiminay wrote: »

It took the person who gave it to me a week of talking to customs on the phone to get them cleared (he bought 4 as gifts for people including me). He called it a "decorative prop" rather than a weapon (which is what they were labelled as on the shipping docket).

That sounds like Customs may have suspected that it could have been an offensive weapon under the legislation, but that they didn't know one way or the other, initally.

According to the Dept. of Justice website:

15. What are the laws on importing knives?
The only type of weapons prohibited for importation are those listed under the 1991 Order on offensive weapons and the 2009 amendment to it. This order includes flick knives and several types of disguised knives among other weapons. Other type of knives can be imported, however an individual could be charged for possession of same in public without a lawful reason as set out in Section 9 of the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act 1990.

LowKeyReturn

I wish you K'Pla in your endeavour.