Register these Hands as Deadly Weapons:

In the Business Law or Legal Environment courses that I teach we usually do a chapter on Criminal Law and the issue of self-defense and deadly v. non-deadly force comes up. This question is always raised every semester: whether martial artists or professional boxers ever need to register their hands as deadly weapons. I soon found out that this is an urban legend. Now Eugene Volokh has uncovered one place where it’s true:

“Jon Roland has uncovered that the ‘Karate experts must register their hands and feet as deadly weapons’ line -- which I had assumed was generally a joke, but if taken seriously has been debunked as an urban legend -- is actually true in at least one place: Guam."

Read the urban legend link. Everywhere else except Guam this need not be done. So don’t be afraid to go for that black belt on account that you will have to register your hands—you won’t.

There is a kernel of truth to the urban myth—and here it is: Whether one has been trained in the fighting arts may have *some* bearing—some legal consequences—on the outcome of a particular case. It’s certainly possible to be killed or greatly harmed by fists or feet alone; so the question raised is whether these may ever qualify as “deadly force.” But even then the general rule is that one must be using an external object to qualify as deadly force.