# Hands are lethel weapons?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hands-are-lethel-weapons/383616
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [December 10, 2006, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hands-are-lethel-weapons/383616 "2006-12-10T23:33:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2007, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hands-are-lethel-weapons/383616/41 "2007-01-05T17:36:52Z")
A related legend (I assume?) is one about the old Japanese man in an Okinawan bar running into a bunch of U.S. Marine rowdies. I believe this UL is/was told often in the military.
The story is that the local authorities gave this old man – a kung fu expert, natch – a card that he was obliged to present in the case of an altercation. The card’s writing is in Japanese, and explains how so-and-so has achieved such-and-such level of kung fu training.
Anyhoo … supposedly the Marine toughs in a bar were giving the old man a hard time. The old man wants to fight back, but presents the card instead. The Marines laugh, and one of them knocks the card out of the old man’s hand. The old man bends down, picks up the card, and presents it twice more, with the same result. After the third presentation, the old man handily cleans out the barroom all by his lonesome with his mad kung fu skillz.
It’s always mentioned that local law required the old man to present the card three times to a potential opponent … but that after that, he was free to kick arse with no fear of arrest.
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### Author:  [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2007, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hands-are-lethel-weapons/383616/42 "2007-01-05T17:48:39Z")
[QUOTE=chowder]
I once heard that experts in martial arts had to carry a card which in the event of any altercation outside of competition they were supposed to show to their opponent.
Is this also an UL?
[/QUOTE]
Yes. 2nd Degree Black Belt TKD chiming in…
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### Author:  [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2007, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hands-are-lethel-weapons/383616/43 "2007-01-05T17:55:53Z")
[QUOTE=groman]
:rolleyes: Are you saying a handcuffed 9th degree black belt can take on two Nevada police officers with guns, tasers and batons? I think the ability to carry something like that out successfully, while far from being completely impossible, has very little to do with having a 9th degree black belt in anything. I’d be more inclined to believe a ballet dancer or a gymnast pulling it off.
[/QUOTE]
Handcuffing anyone trained in a leg-intensive art such as Tae Kwon Do or Thai kickboxing is a fool’s errand. If they wanted to truly restrain him, leg irons would have been necessary, too…
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### Author:  [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2007, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hands-are-lethel-weapons/383616/44 "2007-01-05T19:00:21Z")
Good thing the cop didn’t drop a spoon.
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### Author:  [@groman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groman)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2007, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hands-are-lethel-weapons/383616/45 "2007-01-05T19:55:14Z")
[QUOTE=VunderBob]
Handcuffing anyone trained in a leg-intensive art such as Tae Kwon Do or Thai kickboxing is a fool’s errand. If they wanted to truly restrain him, leg irons would have been necessary, too…
[/QUOTE]
Well, I guess the same logic would work for an olympic runner as well, no? 🙂
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### Author:  [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2007, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hands-are-lethel-weapons/383616/46 "2007-01-05T20:08:22Z")
We actually tried to do a Staff Report on this a while back. The closest we came was that the origin was a joke, but we couldn’t track the exact situation so gave up. Imagine some total nebbish, like a young Woody Allen, being accosted by some ruffian, taking up a karate stand and saying, “Stand back! My hands are registered as lethal weapons!” We were pretty confident that was the origin of the urban legend, but we couldn’t nail it more than that.
It’s still sitting in the pile of things to finish up someday, if someone would like to take up the search.
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### Author:  [@MrSquishy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrSquishy)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2007, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hands-are-lethel-weapons/383616/47 "2007-01-05T21:30:07Z")
[QUOTE=C K Dexter Haven]
We actually tried to do a Staff Report on this a while back. The closest we came was that the origin was a joke, but we couldn’t track the exact situation so gave up. Imagine some total nebbish, like a young Woody Allen, being accosted by some ruffian, taking up a karate stand and saying, “Stand back! My hands are registered as lethal weapons!” We were pretty confident that was the origin of the urban legend, but we couldn’t nail it more than that.
It’s still sitting in the pile of things to finish up someday, if someone would like to take up the search.
[/QUOTE]
Well, I’m almost certain Don Knotts used this gag once or twice on _Three’s Company_. He’s pretty nebbish, isn’t he?
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### Author:  [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2007, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hands-are-lethel-weapons/383616/48 "2007-01-05T21:44:32Z")
[QUOTE=MrSquishy]
Well, I’m almost certain Don Knotts used this gag once or twice on _Three’s Company_. He’s pretty nebbish, isn’t he?
[/QUOTE]
I’m pretty sure he used it even before that on “the Andy Griffith Show.”
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### Author:  [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2007, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hands-are-lethel-weapons/383616/49 "2007-01-05T23:37:05Z")
[QUOTE=MrSquishy]
Well, I’m almost certain Don Knotts used this gag once or twice on _Three’s Company_. He’s pretty nebbish, isn’t he?
[/QUOTE]
Wasn’t there also something similar in a Monty Python movie? 😛
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### Author:  [@Khampelf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khampelf)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hands-are-lethel-weapons/383616/50 "2007-01-07T05:58:34Z")
It makes for a neat Catch-22. If your hands are lethal weapons, how do you take them into a public building (presumably with a statute preventing the carrying of weapons therein) to register them?
“Thank for complying with Law A, we must now arrest you for breaking Law B.”
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### Author:  [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hands-are-lethel-weapons/383616/51 "2007-01-07T15:04:39Z")
I’ve heard this canard repeated, by of all people, Max Kellerman.
Richard Grant had just upset James “The Harlem Hammer” Butler with a unanimous decision. (If you want to see it, search for “Richard Grant” on youtube. It’s possibly nsfw, so I won’t link it here.)
Butler walks over and cold-cocks Grant. He’s out cold.
Kellerman, in a subsequent broadcast mentions “If fighters still had to register their hands, as they once did, Butler could have been charged with attempted murder.”
The irony:
Max’s brother Sam was later murdered. The confessed killer: James “The Harlem Hammer Butler.” But not with his hands. The murder weapon: Well, he lived up to his name. A hammer.
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### Author:  [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hands-are-lethel-weapons/383616/52 "2007-01-07T16:01:54Z")
[QUOTE=drachillix]
Per a friend of mine this is very much correct, however she did point out what has been posted by other dopers that if she was involved in a violent altercation it could be said that she wields deadly force hand to hand by default, whereas the average joe on the street is less capable of crippling or killing with a few well placed hits making it hard to claim the average joe intended to kill or was even capable of killing bare handed.
[/QUOTE]
I disagree with that. Any well trained martial artist will first attempt to disable their attacker using pressure points, which are abso-frickin-lutely wonderful for this sort of stuff. Knowing martial arts does not give you any kind of arcane knowledge of how to kill someone with your pinky finger. It simply gives you a better knowledge of the human body and what works to disable it, plus the physical skills to better implement that knowledge and the confidence to better keep your head in a stress situation.
However, if the attacker has a weapon of any kind, all bets are off because you are now in a deadly force situation, and can use deadly force to defend yourself if necessary.
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### Author:  [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hands-are-lethel-weapons/383616/53 "2007-01-07T16:03:32Z")
[QUOTE=chowder]
I once heard that experts in martial arts had to carry a card which in the event of any altercation outside of competition they were supposed to show to their opponent.
Is this also an UL?
[/QUOTE]
Yes. If I were in an altercation, the only thing I would be saying to my opponent is “Stop!”.
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### Author:  [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hands-are-lethel-weapons/383616/54 "2007-01-07T16:10:29Z")
[QUOTE=sleestak]
In Nevada they have some sort of list of people with serious marital arts skills and or fighters. Either that or they really didn’t like the look of one guy I was with.
My Ex-Roommate (who also happened to be a total ass, but that is another story) had a 9th degree black belt.
[/QUOTE]
Just out of curiousity, how old was your ex-roommate?
The claim of 9th Degree sounds a little fishy to me. That’s grand master level level, and you’re looking at probably 40-50 years of training to obtain it. Unless, of course, it’s in a McDojo style where your promotional exam is writing a check and you pass the exam when the check clears the bank.
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