Lawmaker wants to lift state’s ban on nunchucks

Arizona has long banned weapons capable of causing mass casualties, from bombs and grenades to poison gas and … nunchucks?

“It is silly,” Sen. David Gowan told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, explaining a bill he’d proposed to remove restrictions on the weapon. “Looking at it now and thinking about antiquated laws … maybe we ought to get rid of this thing.”

The state defines nunchucks — or nunchaku, as they’re formally known — as “two or more sticks, clubs, bars or rods connected by a rope, cord, wire or chain, used in connection with the practice of a system of self-defense.”

Gowan, a Sierra Vista Republican and martial-arts instructor, said states began prohibiting them in the 1970s, after Bruce Lee popularized the weapon in his martial-arts films. At the time, officials feared gang members would use them to commit crimes, he said.

Rather than preventing violence, Gowan argued the ban simply stopped martial-arts teachers from being able to teach their students about the traditional weapon.

“In Arizona, (we’re) able to carry concealed guns, yet we can’t use nunchaku to do our self defense,” he said.

Dave Kopp, president of the Arizona Citizens Defense League, contended it makes no sense to have “a martial-arts tool onto the prohibited-weapon list along with missiles and rocket launchers and bombs and things like that.”