In the current state of the world with all of the gun violence, loss of life, and rockets throwing Teslas into space, it’s important to stay vigilant and pay attention to real threats.
Today, I’ll be highlighting a much overlooked concern regarding the safety of our children in schools. Plenty of national media attention is focused on AR-15’s and AK-47’s, but for now, I want to talk about Nunchaku, better known on the streets as Nunchucks.
No one knows where nunchucks were originally developed as a weapon, but it is believed that farmers in Okinawa started the trend having modified non-weapons that they found around the house. Many years later, they reemerged and were popularized by such pop-culture icons as Bruce Lee and the pizza loving hero of children everywhere, Michelangelo of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
This last bit is something worth noting, as children are extremely impressionable… sometimes with tragic end. As was the case with 15 year old Ricky Butler, who was beaten to death at a “Pimps and Ho’s” themed Halloween party, but 19 year old Richard Martin. The weapon used to cave in poor ricky’s skull? Nunchucks[2].
It’s difficult to say how many more, like Ricky have been murdered by this deadly weapon, but the more interesting concern is the inclusion of this ridiculous weapon in the arsenal of the police. As recently as 2015, California police officers have been training in the striking and subduing techniques of nunchucks [3]. With all of the overt police related deaths that happen on our streets from such well known, and long trained weapons as batons, tasers, and chokeholds; is it really a good idea to add an infamously brutal samurai weapon to their lethal arsenal of handguns, automatic rifles, and shotguns?
Are we any safer?
Are our children?
[1] Photo: https://www.dcourier.com/news/2016/jan/21/editorial-some-bills-hit-you-between-the-eyes-vid/
[2] Article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2580119/Halloween-gatecrasher-battered-schoolboy-to-death-with-nunchucks.html
[3] Article: https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/04/us/california-police-equipment-nunchucks/index.html