From: gharlane@nextnet.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore)
Subject: putrid weapons policy ( was:  Re: Boskone )
Followup-To: alt.dev.null
Summary:  stupidity.  Peacebonding works fine.
Keywords: You can have my stave when you pry it from my cold dead hand!
Organization: Evil Beings From Planet Eddore, Inc.
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 04:16:05 GMT

Joel Polowin commented:

> Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.misc
> Subject: Re: Boskone
> From: polowin@chem.queensu.ca (Joel Polowin)
> Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 23:02:27 GMT
> Organization: Dept. of Chemistry, Queen's University
> 
> In <199301062041.AA28939@aerospace.aero.org>
>  obrien@AERO.ORG (Mike O'Brien) writes:
> 
> > > Boskone Weapons Policy
> > >
> > > As is standard at most conventions, no weapon, or anything that
> > > looks like a weapon, is allowed at Boskone at any time. This 
> > > includes clubs, quarterstaves, wizard's staves, lasers, squirt
> > > guns, toy zap guns, or anything else that resembles a weapon. 
> > > If you violate this rule you will be asked to leave the convention.
> >
> > If banning wizard's staves is standard at most conventions it's news
> > to me.  Far as I can tell this is unique to Boskone.  It's too bad, but
> > not as bad as it might be, because Boskone, unlike most conventions,
> > has a reputation among some fans, at least, as being boring.
> 
> If it CAN be used as a weapon, it IS a weapon.  Any and all objects
> which can be used to harm someone in any way must be left in the room.
> 

Right.   I once saw a man killed (on purpose!) by a skillfully thrown 
ballpoint pen.   You going to restrict the autograph table occupants 
to quill pens?   How about the silverware from the dining room?  You
*ARE* aware, aren't you, that in prisons, no one is allowed to take
silverware out of the "dining rooms," because it's accepted that it 
will be used as weaponry?    How about  high-heeled shoes?   Ever 
seen a human skull that's been bopped once, with a high-heeled shoe?
(I had to watch the post-mortem on a high-heel assault victim, once.
 The heel was still in the head.  To this day I go out of my way not
 to aggravate ladies who wear the things.)
I won't even mention how easy it is to strangle someone with a shoe-
lace, or throw a thousand-foot-pound-impact-energy ball bearing with 
a belt, sling style.......

  One of my favorite costume props is my "talking stave."  It's a carved, 
bejewelled, battery-powered six-foot wizard's staff with L.E.D.'s that 
flash in controlled patterns, several dedicated microprocessor chips,
a voice synthesizer, a couple of music synth chips, and two megs of RAM
that hold whatever music I've downloaded from the totable cpu I keep in
the hotel room.  (AND is 2.5" max diameter, thinner most places.)
Even though the tube is custom-machined aircraft aluminum (under all the 
anodization and wood-strip overlay) it weighs about twenty-thirty pounds.
(Depends on whether I have the Big Battery Pack or the Little Battery Pack
 in it, and whether I have the tuned-port speaker modules mounted on the 
 ends... it's a modularly configurable wizard's stave, you see.)
  And yet, the last time I tried to carry it through the halls at Boskone, 
I got jumped by "security" because they were afraid I was going to "hit
someone" with a prop I'd been working on, off and on, for several years.
Riiiiiiiiight. 
 
I don't go to "Boskone" any more.   Guess why.


> How could this be boring?  The only problem would be keeping the 
> vice squad off your butts...  :-)

Trust a Canuck to go along with idiotic weapons-control policies, and
then do an auto-default to sex-crime concepts.  I decline to consider 
why Joel feels that our collective (or singular!) butts might constitute
a danger to society, even in the eyes of the local P.D. 
----There are some things I honestly feel I Was Not Meant To Know.

Save your money; go to a convention that allows peace-bonded 
costume weapons, and throws people out for brandishing or drawing
same.   Conventions that expect maturity and responsibility on
the part of attendees attract a far more interesting clientele.

> Joel Polowin
> polowin@silicon.chem.queensu.ca, polowin@chem.queensu.ca,
> polowinj@qucdn.queensu.ca
>