Shruiken' Ain't Easy

Last week I did a Hero Profile on the Viper, who had made the news after being confronted by Columbia, Tennessee police. They found shruiken (commonly called ninja throwing stars) in his car. I decided to poll RLSHs to see if they favored carrying throwing stars or if they felt they were a liability. I opened a poll here on my blog as well as on therlsh.net forum. The majority in both polls voted "No," with a smaller percentage voting “Maybe” depending on the situation. Only one vote in between the two polls was for “Yes.”

POLL RESULTS: therlsh.net forum poll (31 votes) //Heroes in the Night poll (16 votes)

Yes, they are useful for a crime deterrent or crime fighting 1 (3%)//0 (0%)
Maybe, it depends on who is using them and local law 7 (22%)//3 (18%)
No, they are dangerous and a liability 23 (74%)// 13 (81%)

People also commented on therlsh.net poll about why they cast their vote. Here is a small sampling of the many comments left-

Mega-Rad: I had some throwing stars when I was a kid -- I don't think they're that dangerous or useful, really. You could always throw a rock (or pretty much anything) at somebody if you needed to. And ninja stars tend to be viewed as either illegal or at least suspicious weapons by the authorities.

The stars being in (Viper’s) car could mean anything -- he could have intended to carry them around and basically chickened out. They could have been in a shopping bag and he just stuffed his new ninja stars under his seat... etc etc.

Superhero: I suck with them. I would throw one at a fence & you'd hear a window break down the street & we'd all be like "I think my mom is calling me" & run. So in my hands there should be a law against them. So I voted maybe.

Razorhawk: I voted no cause as much as I love edged weapons, they are not legal and they are not a safe deterrent to crime. Stars are good for causing bodily injury and not much else. That’s not something we should be playing with out there.

Sentinel: Best way to throw a shuriken at a weapon wielding scumbag, is throw it towards the hard pavement (that's if you're on it) and watch it skip like a stone to it's intended target. Then, as the dirtbag is looking down with a "WTF"??? look on his face, you've closed the gap between you and he (or her) and can hopefully disarm them, or encourage them to stop what they're doing.

Statesman: Honestly, if someone I was patrolling with whipped out a shuriken, I'd be sorely tempted to smack some sense into them.
"You there! Stop robbing that house, or I'll throw a piece of sharp metal at you!"