I have read all of your posts with interest, and while it may have been an originally proposed exclusion, where does it say that swords over 100 yrs old are exempt? It doesn't, in fact say this! One sword site was also using an earlier draft which specified "single edged curved swords"; this would have exempted European sabres because of up to one third of the back edge being sharpened from the point. Now, the only exemptions (apart from re-enactments, illustrations and sports) are for the very type of weapon (albeit for the real rather than the reproduction) that brought the bill into being in the first place; our own European historically cultural Military curved swords are not exempt!
This is a travesty; show me a hoodied yob, indigenous or otherwise, who is interested in the honour of leadership, obligation and duty represented by a sword. Show them a 1796 Officer's LC Sabre or a 1796/1803 Flank Company Officer's Sabre etc. etc., and all they see, with what little brainpower they have inherited from their restricted gene pool (nay, - make that gene puddle!), is that it can kill people, - anyone!
The problem today, is that thanks to the apologist 'do-gooder' mentality ascendant in our society with the eclipsing of the masculine by the feminine, it is no longer acceptable to judge people on their suitability as we used to; viz:- "no sorry you uneducated uncouth and pugnacious ignoramus, you are not a fitting member of society to possess something as noble as a sword" All that was necessary was to licence them and require the usual endorsement from a referee of professional rank; thus excluding the yobs and their yoblet offspring.
Mike
