Can a trained fighter really be charged with “assult with a deadly weapon” for attacking someone with his fists, or is this a myth?
This seems like the sort of thing Cecil might have already answered, but I couldn’t find it.
This has been discussed before. I think the gist is that the stuff about registering your hands as a weapon is a myth, but trained fighters may be held to a different standard because their training should allow them to respond to attacks in a controlled manner without escalating.
Thanks, I had a feeling it would have been. My mistake was searching for “deadly weapons” and not “lethal weapons.”
It is suprisingly common for people to be beaten to death.
Even quite small people can do it, if they totally lose control of their anger.
And it most commonly occurs without the desire to end the life of your opponent.
Knock somebody down, he hits his head on a stone, and both your lives are over. He is dead.
You are then every man’s Enemy, the Murderer, and every man’s hand is against you.
I’m a serious pacifist. I eschew all violence, and decline even viewing real-life violence when I can.
Having said that, I studied Tae Kwon Do for about 3 1/2 years. I was rather close to my 1st don Black Belt, when I suffered an injury that stopped my studies. I never sparred. ( no hijacks about how I tested up belts without sparring, ok? )
I learned enough that I could quickly disable someone badly and kill them. One perfectly thrown blow ( which I never practiced of course ), or a few blows that did it. Their larynx would be crushed, aorta ruptured, diaphragm torn, etc. I cannot imagine such a thing, but I do know how to do it. My hand are hardly lethal objects but as pointed out above, it is not overly difficult to kill someone with your bare hands.
Living with yourself afterwards, that’s another trick…
Cartooniverse
Yeah, the “Registering your hands” thing is just nonsense. It can be brought up during sentencing, I believe, but isn’t really relavent before then. The crime of battery is the same regardless. It can be upgraded to Aggravated Battery (a felony) if you use a weapon, or if you cause serious bodily harm with just your hands. But that has nothing to do with your skill as a fighter. You could just be bigger. Or you could have gotten in a lucky punch and then proceeded to jab out eye balls or stop on tracheas or something. Your training is irrelavent. The damage you did is.
Also, if a tiny framed female cop is attacked (or immediately in danger of being attacked) by a 6’5", 300lb unarmed man, she could be authorized to use Deadly Force in such a situation based the size difference and the threat of “serious bodily harm”. But again, very tall, muscular people do not have to register themselves as weapons. That’s just silly.
This is somewhat overstated. The whole point of sparring is to learn how to apply the techniques you learned in a more realistic situation than kata or set practice. You might be very dangerous against a stationary passive target, but without sparring experience, you would probably just hurt yourself trying to apply your techniques in a combat situation. As others have said, it’s not all that hard to hurt someone, but if you think you’re going to use your martial arts techniques to do it, you’d better practice them in sparring. I’ve studied a few different martial arts from Wing Chun to Aikido, and in every case, the introduction to sparring is a rude awakening for the student who thinks they’re getting good.
I accept that this is not your goal. I simply don’t want you to delude yourself about what your training accomplished.
I just wanted to throw in here on the topic, since we’ve gotten into the “deadly weapon” area of martial arts.
There’s a book on my shelf that I read several years ago about martial arts and self defense. That having been said, I believe you can opt to register if you choose to, and I’ve heard of schools that perpetuate the myth by having their top students register, because they “have to”. I suppose it helps if you’re going into bodyguard work or something if you can show someone that you’re registered as a deadly weapon.
As far as the myth that it’s easy to kill someone or harm someone with martial arts training, this is largely bunk as well. Many people are killed with bare hands each year, but it’s typically the result of repeated blows after disabling someone. If I knock you unconscious and continue to beat you while you’re laying on the sidewalk, it’s remarkably easy enough to kill you.
The reality of various targeted death strikes is that those trained fighters have been tested, and repeatedly failed to measure up. I have been a full contact fighter, and have trained in both NHB settings and full contact karate settings where bare knuckle chest and body blows are exchanged, and rarely is anyone killed.
Some of the groups I belong to, along with a rather brash set from a website for full contact fighters, make it a point to regularly challange people who make claims of having deadly styles, and deadly techniques. After hundreds of challanges, videotaped for records, no one has yet killed a full contact fighter with their skills, and much hilarity has ensued over the lengths some teachers go to keep their students after they failed to “gouge eyes, crush windpipes, and snap knees.”
You’d be amazed how difficult eyes, windpipes and testicles are to strike at while a target is attacking you 
Sorry but I have to ask for a cite for any jurisdiction that will allow someone to register himself or any body parts as a deadly weapon. There are clear definintions of deadly weapons. Most do not include things that can only incidentally be used to kill. One can sure as hell kill somoene with a screwdriver or a baseball bat and that use may make them a deadly instrument but not a deadly weapon. If anyone has such a license I’d bet it has the word “dog” crossed out and “cat,” I mean “ninja assasin” written in crayon.
Well the OP did say fists so I don’t know if these count or not.
I think he’s saying there are some books and people out there who play along with the myth and might even incorporate (fake) certificates saying such into their little cults and other like-minded groups might recognize them - even though the real world doesn’t. After all you and you friends can get Federal Breast Inspector’s cards and all pretend…
On the whole “registered as a deadly weapon” thing. A guy I knew (friend at the time, I didn’t know he was a thieving scum yet) had a 9th degree black belt in something. I don’t remember what exactly. He also fought professionaly for a while in the US, specifically Nevada, and Japan. Anyway, one day we got pulled over for speeding. He was driving. The cop, when he got to the car, asked him to step out and imediately cufed him. The cop cuffed him because he was registered to fight in Nevada. The cop said somehting like “I am doing this for your protection as well as mine”. Apparently the cop ran the plate before he got out of the car. After the cop wrote the ticket the cop un-cuffed him and we drove off.
It was strange.
Slee
Case law has held that hands and feet are lethal weapons when applied to a sleeping or intoxicated victim.
Actually, from what I’d heard, the instructor was telling his students they had to register at a certain point, and several of his advanced students had told the story around town that they couldn’t fight except under extreme circumstances due to this fact.
I went to no trouble to actually verify what process was going on behind the scenes, since it was the most ridiculous thing I’d heard of, so I don’t know what was actually going on.
They seemed like honest people though, and seemed to actually believe they were dangerous and deadly folk.
I’ll give the FDLE information line a call and see if it’s possible to register, even though it seems ridiculous. My curiosity is piqued