perceived as a weapon

So I'm at a mexican restaraunt about to eat dinner. I have my clubs tucked in my back belt and some kids see them. They say 'Hey juggleman, can you juggle for us?'. I say sure and start juggling in a mellow very controlled pattern respectful that I'm in a restaurant and there are people around. The kids are loving it and a very attractive woman blurts out 'Ooooooh, check it out!...he's juggling!'. The head waitress comes by and says I have to stop immediately since I'm doing something 'extremely dangerous'!

Extremely dangerous? Say what? Last time I checked, NONE of the hijackers on 9/11 had a juggling club. Juggling clubs are NOT used by any police force in the world to help keep law and order. Neither the cripts nor the bloods carry juggling clubs to street fights. Not a single martial art uses juggling clubs as a weapon in their combat techiques. The CIA, KGB nor any terrorist cell teach agents anything about juggling clubs for good reason...they are NOT dangerous. In fact, with their soft rubber knobs and flexible plastic shells, they are actually quite forgiving...even if they hit you by accident. In our super tight security check points of our post 9/11 era, one can even carry on juggling clubs to an airport...yep, it's true...done it many times...PX3's fly through without even a flinch by TSA agents...and juggling clubs are NOT listed on the TSA's official prohibited items list.

As I was leaving the mexican food restaraunt, I was juggling by a pack of hot babes standing outside the door. They were giggling at each other and started to talk juggling. Generally it's entertaining to listen to hot babes talk about pretty much anything but juggling is definitely a special treat. As I was walking past with my decorated renegades glittering as they spun against the street lights, the babes said "You know what would be really cool? If he lit those on fire, that would be really cool". I thought to myself that technically they'd be hot, not cool. And even if I could light my renegade clubs on fire, they'd probably stink of burning plastic...yuck! The babes continued "swords would be cool too". I was tempted to get my torches and machetes out of my car and put on a show but the babes were smoking...I hate cigarettes!

so i'm walking into disneyland with my kids. we've packed our camera, water and of course some px3 juggling clubs to make the long lines more entertaining for others as well as sliding in some quality practice time for ourselves (some of those lines are LONG). at the gate the disney security people are going through people's personal items to make sure another 9-11 terrorist attack does not occur at the happiest place in the world.

at the entrance, one of the security people pulls out a juggling club as asks why I'm carrying around juggling 'pins'. I tell them the truth, that I'm a juggler, my kids are aspiring jugglers and we wanted an entertaining way to kill the time (ok, maybe 'kill' was not a good word to use here). the security agent says she'll have to ask her supervisor if the 'pins' can come in with mickey. the supervisor looks at the club, studies it closely, waves it around a bit and in all seriousness says I won't be able to bring it in since the club could be 'perceived as a weapon'.

give me a break! disneyland sells a veritable cornucopia of things that not only can be 'perceived as weapons', they ARE weapons!!! from star wars blasters of all sizes and shapes to pirates of the Caribbean swords, daggers, to frontier land rifles to maces available by the haunted mansion to antique murderers (that's what old seamen called hand guns, for obvious reasons (this term's etymology stems from what pirates would do with these little weapons if boarded by surprise by hostiles (i.e. they would be used to murder the invaders))). the national rifle association imposes no waiting period for the purchase of any of these weapons to the public.

i wanted to juggle at a neil young concert in mountain view california. my wife assured me this should be no problem since it was in an outside amphitheater, there was plenty of space and people would probably be doing all sorts of activities. she said if a security person had an issue with my clubs, just pull them out and juggle for them and they should be swayed to let me in. as my wife, baby daughter and I were walking into the event, the security people were going through people's bags. again the guard said i was not able to bring my clubs in. i asked to see the 'head' guard. the 'head' guard looked at the clubs and said that someone could get hurt if the club was thrown.

there is a bit of an inconsistency here. the same security people would let in my nikon 10x70 binouculars which weigh close to 10 lbs and are made of steel and glass. concert goers had glass bottles of beer and the vendors were selling beer and bottled water to the masses. if one were to throw one of those objects, people could get hurt 5000 times more easily than if i dropped a club on someone. here is why:

the NRA and UL measure how much energy a projectile has (be it a toy or bullet) by kinetic energy. kinetic energy is usually expressed as 1/2mv^2. but juggling clubs usually have a bit more energy since we spin them when we throw them. this spinning component adds to the total kinetic energy of the club (to a small degree). so if we assume a normal juggler throws a club, say three feet, and one spin occurs with the club, that means the club is spinning roughly 10 radians/second. the kinetic energy of the spin = Iw^2 where w = radians/sec. what is I? that is a great philosophical question that i could expound on for hours but for this conversation it's the moment of inertia. for a club spinning around it's center, it's roughly ml^2/12 where m is the mass of the club and l is the length (and I'm sure some people are going to get all technical on me and insist i integrate the profile of the club in question but I'm just approximating things here at the moment). the mass of a px3 = 0.22Kg = m. l = 0.514 meters. thus if you do the math, mgh + Iw^2 = 1.97 + 0.48. for my nikon binoculars, mass = 4.54Kg, l = 0.2m. now if the guard is concerned about someone throwing something, i'm guessing if someone wanted to take out neil young on stage, they are probably not going to be able to get closer than 10 meters before security tags him. thus mgh for the binoculars at 10 meters would be 1162 and the rotational kinetic energy will be 1.5 (compare that with 1.97 and 0.48 for the px3). if you compare these two figures, you get that the nikons are going to be able to impart about 4750 times more kinetic energy than a px3.

in other words, if you are concerned about someone getting hurt if something is thrown, leave the jugglers alone!