Massachusetts Sues Online Vendors

Waging the War Against Nunchaku and Switchblades!

“Massachusetts officials are cracking down, with Attorney General Tom Reilly suing seven out-of-state weapons sellers and three out-of-state ammunition sellers, charging they sold illegal products in Massachusetts.”

Reilly was also quoted as saying: “We cannot allow these dangerous weapons to get into the hands of anyone in Massachusetts, particularly our children….”

After a two year “sting” spending $5000.00 (sitting at a keyboard) ordering slingshots, butterfly knives, and nunchaku, seven companies were charged. These suits claim the weapons sellers sold and shipped stun guns, switch-blade knives, swords, nunchaku, throwing stars, sling shots and dirk knives to an undercover investigator in violation of statutes banning the sale of such items.

I have known of one of these companies for years and they sell nothing in the line of weapons that a martial artist does not use in legitimate and traditional martial arts training.

I think it’s a pretty sorry “sting” that takes two years and $5k to pull off. I could do it in a day but don’t hold me to that it might take a whole week – for their greed to overtake them and make the sale. What a hoot! You can type any of the products that they obtained and there are literally millions of web pages competing and listed for that term. Try stun gun for example, and you will see Google returns 2,490,000 results and Yahoo! returns 2,450,000 results. Although vendors have lists of “known” states, districts and cities that prohibit owning and the shipment of stun technology, the rules get very sketchy after that. Almost to a company there is a disclaimer, that while they can’t possibly know or list every rule and regulation for ownership of a certain items such as a pepper spray, that the consumer should check first with local authorities, before placing their order. They will also have a disclaimer that the person is over 18, it is legal to own in their community….ad nauseum, in their information our store policy sections. I think they do a darn good job, on the whole.

I think the attorney general is making a really big deal about a few orders from companies, and fulfilled in good faith. There’s no lists of states, cities and townships that prohibit the ownership or sale of a throwing star or a sling shot which is pretty much accepted, just about everywhere else. Click here to read the exciting details of this two year sting!

I think the Attorney General should have spent his time, and saved the taxpayers some cash, in trying to allow his citizenry to arm themselves instead of trying to catch seven online stores in two years selling him a stun gun, or some nunchaku. It’s a statistic – that States passing the “may issue” and “shall issue” concealed carry laws for firearms, have a lower rate of violent crime. Here’s an interesting piece which debates whether “may issue” states or “shall issue” states, have a lower crime rate. They dismissed the NRA figures and made some pretty nifty tables to show that the NRA had inflated the numbers in their favor, and then proceed to discuss their methods of tabulation and that the numbers were lower, but still lower nonetheless. Read it here! Didn’t they used to burn “witches” in Massachusetts?