[MR] New Combat Archery Rules

[Siegfried Sebastian Faust]

>And the vast majority of combat archers were kept in the dark about this
>until after the ruling was made.  Enquiries on the Missile-Combat list
>about "I've heard there's a rule change coming...what's going on?" were
>met with a "Things are still being worked out, you *WILL* be involved
>once the plans are formed".

Just a quick correction Gorm, and others.  This specific ruling, has
NOTHING to do with the 'rumors of a rule change coming'.  Those 'rumors'
are still being discussed, and things are being worked out, and these
changes will all be brought to the general populace for discussion in good
time, and have plenty of lead time on said changes.  Mostly because, they
are not necessarily "safety" changes.

This specific ruling that has just come out, everyone was in the dark on,
including myself, Tessa's Deputy.  The reason is, from what I have been
since told, is that there was no time period to keep people in the dark
with.  While some incidents from Gulf Wars have been being looked into, and
various testing done, etc.  It was JUST realized that these blunts were
actually illegal by SCA standards, and that was why some 'incidents' had
occurred.

There was no time for discussion, it was not brought before anyone.  Simply
put, it was realized that the blunts were a safety hazard on the field, and
therefore, they were immediately banned.

(On that note, actually, the SEM decided to be 'nice', and made the ban
only start on Sunday, so that people on Friday, when they got the message,
didn't have to worry about the Saturday event they were about to attend).

Since it was a serious safety issue, they didn't want to announce a waiting
period, like was done with the APD issue, because of flak that happened
during the APD grace period.  When it had been determined that arrows
without APDs posed a hazard, yet they were allowed on the field for another
3 months.  Mostly, at that time, because that ruling affected 90% of the
ammo on the field at the time.

This time, it was a specific commercial blunt, that had just entered
production, and while 'thousands' have been sold, it still does not reach
5% of the ammo currently in existence.

This is no different than if it was realized that a certain manufacturer of
helms was making their spun domes in a way that actually spun the metal too
thin, and therefore a statement was made banning all those helms.

Again, if you would like to have any further discussions on this, that's
why I'm here.

Siegfried