Nunchuck enthusiast wins 15-year legal battle to overturn N.Y. ban

Transcript

For the first time in almost two decades, Jim Maloney is planning to re-string his nunchucks and start practicing again. 

The Long Island man has succeeded in his 15-year battle to overturn New York's state ban on the traditional martial arts weapons that consist of two heavy sticks connected by a chain or rope.

"It means I can get back to practicing my martial arts as I had hoped to do for some years," Maloney, 60, told As It Happens host Carol Off. 

"Of course, it means a lot to me that the statute has now been struck down and others can do it as well."

A Second Amendment victory 

Maloney started his legal quest after being charged with possession of nunchucks in his home in 2000.

He initially filed a complaint in 2003, and appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court when the case went against him.

"It was really outrage that made me motivated to challenge the statute," he said. "I thought it was a ridiculous thing that's unfair."

The Supreme Court in 2010 remanded the case back down to be reconsidered in light of a Second Amendment decision it had made in another case.

Judge Pamela Chen issued her ruling Friday in a Brooklyn federal court, striking down the 1974 ban as unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.

"I think the popular conception is to equate the Second Amendment with firearms ownership because that's the big issue out there," Maloney said. "But the Second Amendment is much broader."

Maloney had been focused on getting the part of the law overturned that banned nunchucks in private homes, but he got more than he bargained for.

In her ruling, Chen struck down the law in its entirety, including the ban on manufacturing, transporting or disposing of nunchucks. 

The suit names the Nassau County district attorney as a defendant. The county's lawyer had no immediate comment.

Kung Fu fever

Initially popularized in America by movie star Bruce Lee in the '70s, nunchucks have continued to be a staple of pop culture, appearing in media franchises like Mortal Combat, Daredevil and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The court ruling went over the history of the ban, noting it arose in the '70s out of a concern that the rising popularity of Kung Fu movies would inspire youth to use nunchucks to commit acts of violence. 

While Maloney admits they can be a dangerous weapon, he said the same is true for knives, scissors and baseball bats. 

"Their purpose, one could say, is a recreation martial arts use. I mean, it's a lot of fun to swing them around," he said.

"Back in the 1970s when I began, most of the kids who were doing it were doing it because it was a fun thing to do. It looked cool. It was great training for the upper body and co-ordination and dexterity."

But when they are used as a weapon, Maloney says nunchucks make for safer self-defence than guns or a knives.

"Having them in a ready state, tucked under your mattress or whatever, is not likely to lead to any tragic deaths of a child or something," he said.

"The other thing is that nunchaku, unlike penetrating weapons, can be used in a much more restrained matter. You don't have to do the all or nothing of threaten to shoot and then shoot and possibly kill."

'White rabbit' 

Maloney, a maritime lawyer who blogs at nunchuklaw.blogspot.com, started using nunchucks when he was a teenager.

He later developed his own nunchuck-based martial art called Shafan Ha Lavan, which is Hebrew for "white rabbit."

But he's been out of practice since 2000, when he decided to de-string his karate sticks and put them away out of respect for the law.

That's about to change.

"I haven't gotten around to it yet, but I will be re-stringing my nunchucks and practicing with them, yes."

Written by Sheena Goodyear with files from Associated Press. Interview with Jim Maloney produced by Sarah-Joyce Battersby.