Proliferation of Lightsabers Worldwide

[DarthProdigal]

How many lightsabers are there on our planet?
This question crept out of the dark corners of my mind in a very Metal Gear Solid inspired thought. Much like the old ratio that existed of X number of firearms to Y number of people on the planet. I wondered initially if there was even a way to get a rough handle on this, but even those statistic would be nigh impossible to compile. So, I get it's less a practical question and more so just food for thought. But if you think in comparison to SW universe canon where they are highly restricted, rarified by production issues or legality, and only wielded by "skilled adepts/masters" our planet would look insane by comparison. Just think about it, if our planet were suddenly "discovered" in the SW universe it'd probably break everything into a new galactic war. The resulting potential arms race, lightsaber proliferation, black market sales, heck probably destruction or enslavement by Sith would be on the horizon. Then again who would want to try invading a planet full of this weapon density? If I were that Sith Lord I'd send an army to steal as many as possible, and once my cargo holds were full enough I'd bombard the whole planet to dust. Maybe go to the surface after and cast a extra destructive ritual for good measure. Too dangerous to let live would be my assessment of these particular humans. (maybe I'll one day write a Fan Fic like that, but I bet several exist already for good ole Earth)

So steering away from that theoretical nerd rant and back to my original topic...
The implications of this number blow me away! Just thinking how many US has shipped since they started, the fact individual users and "the other guys" build some too, and how many forum members (active and past) tend to own personal arsenals... In my opinion it could even eclipse firearms, which is almost crazy to fathom. It's truly awesome to me, but I bet the Jedi Order would find the thought rather troubling indeed.

[SirLiftaLot]

This makes me think about the nature and possibility of weapons bans. In a country where there was never a massive firearm culture, a gun ban wouldn't be impossibly difficult, as law-abiding citizens would by definition turn in their weapons (else they'd cease to be law-abiding citizens), and after that there wouldn't be this massive amount of firearms on the black market and in the hands of criminals, so keeping the numbers under control would be possible. However, in a country like America, which is so steeped in gun culture, where the are so many guns, a ban would be less likely to be successful in my view. Yes, law-abiding citizens would still turn in their weapons, but many people view their Second Amendment as an important means to protect their other rights from a tyrannical government, as it was sort of out of this distrust of government that the US arose as a country, so some would keep their weapons and cease to technically be law-abiding citizens by doing so. Then you also have the fact that, since they're so omnipresent in the country, many, many criminals already have them themselves, since they're much easier to obtain in the US than in some other countries, and wouldn't readily turn them in if they were banned. There is an argument to be made here that this could serve to only disarm law-abiding citizens while doing nothing to take the weapons away from criminals. To quote Jefferson quoting Cesare Beccaria, "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed one."

So, to bring it back to lightsabers, how would lightsaber bans/restrictons work in places where there are already so many of them, often untrackable?

[DarthProdigal]

First off, not to call you out, but seeking to be helpful: My friend, I do not choose to disagree with you in the slightest. I respect and appreciate your opinion... Although sadly I do not feel I can openly agree with it here. You may be flirting with a Rule 7 incursion here unknowingly. You know people and how they can be, things get incendiary or escalate quickly. I don't want to see you caught in a firestorm especially if you have/had good & innocent intentions. So, I'm just attempting to self regulate the topic and steer away from ANYONE replying to, commenting on, or adding to that part of the post. One of the few times I'll say PLEASE, don't do it people; side step the landmine.

This makes me think about the nature and possibility of weapons bans...
So, to bring it back to lightsabers, how would lightsaber bans/restrictions work in places where there are already so many of them, often untrackable?

This makes a good point, sorta relevant to my concept of SW ships descending from the skies. Jedi Order most likely seeking to impose order for the sake of stability, lest our "ultra violence" seep out into the greater galaxy. I suppose it'd be more "Jedi" to impose a blockade to keep us/our lightsabers quarantined in lieu of "invasion" which would provoke all out conflict. To the extent of bans & restrictions that's a hard one. In theory, in the SW universe the numbers remained controllable. So whenever they wanted to limit access further it was easier as an idea. Plus the Empire doesn't have limitations on paying for info, kicking in doors, Death Star-ing a planet, etc. I'd have to guess that the lightsabers themselves might give off a distinct energy signature that's traceable somehow? Or (ugh) Disney's concept of "Force sensitive crystals" (or whatever, no expert on that one) may be able to be sensed through the Force. But that's probably not the case in new canon or no Jedi would ever have been safe without "concealing" their lightsaber's presence from... ok I'm done. I can't even continue that tangent. Going back to my original post to address your question: Bomb the planet into dust. Because the issue is tied to my original issue answering my original question... The haystack has seemingly infinite needles. Counting them, collecting them, regulating them all would just be equally insane. My question of "how many lightsabers are there?" is similar to "how many stars are in the night sky?". The answers are also similar, Tons and they are so dang beautiful.

[SirLiftaLot]

First off, not to call you out, but seeking to be helpful: My friend, I do not choose to disagree with you in the slightest. I respect and appreciate your opinion... Although sadly I do not feel I can openly agree with it here. You may be flirting with a Rule 7 incursion here unknowingly. You know people and how they can be, things get incendiary or escalate quickly. I don't want to see you caught in a firestorm especially if you have/had good & innocent intentions. So, I'm just attempting to self regulate the topic and steer away from ANYONE replying to, commenting on, or adding to that part of the post. One of the few times I'll say PLEASE, don't do it people; side step the landmine.
This makes a good point, sorta relevant to my concept of SW ships descending from the skies. Jedi Order most likely seeking to impose order for the sake of stability, lest our "ultra violence" seep out into the greater galaxy. I suppose it'd be more "Jedi" to impose a blockade to keep us/our lightsabers quarantined in lieu of "invasion" which would provoke all out conflict. To the extent of bans & restrictions that's a hard one. In theory, in the SW universe the numbers remained controllable. So whenever they wanted to limit access further it was easier as an idea. Plus the Empire doesn't have limitations on paying for info, kicking in doors, Death Star-ing a planet, etc. I'd have to guess that the lightsabers themselves might give off a distinct energy signature that's traceable somehow? Or (ugh) Disney's concept of "Force sensitive crystals" (or whatever, no expert on that one) may be able to be sensed through the Force. But that's probably not the case in new canon or no Jedi would ever have been safe without "concealing" their lightsaber's presence from... ok I'm done. I can't even continue that tangent. Going back to my original post to address your question: Bomb the planet into dust. Because the issue is tied to my original issue answering my original question... The haystack has seemingly infinite needles. Counting them, collecting them, regulating them all would just be equally insane. My question of "how many lightsabers are there?" is similar to "how many stars are in the night sky?". The answers are also similar, Tons and they are so dang beautiful.

Ah, I hadn't even considered that a discussion of legislation regarding weapons is venturing into the realm of politics. I can go back and edit my comment if you think it's going to invite off-topic and inappropriate discussion. I had genuinely not intended to get political, only provide a real-world example of the closest thing I could find to the topic at hand and how it may play out in the real world. But I do see in retrospect that it ended up being political, much in the same way a discussion of wartime military tactics could quickly devolve into political discourse.

Please let me know if you want me to go back and edit my comment to be less political as to help prevent anyone else from stepping on that landmine.

[DarthProdigal]

I think we've done our best to mitigate things, and I fear that wouldn't be possible anyway at this point. Got to trust people at this point I suppose.

So returning to the central topic, the thought I had initially was "wow US must sell tons of these things to be out of stock like this". So how many do they sell annually? I looked on their site and didn't see such numbers readily available. But, the thought remained and evolved to "dang what about years when the movies launched", how many orders since they opened up shop? When I pictured their warehouse I imagined the storage room from Raiders of the Lost Ark! Adding in others from around the world custom built and whatnot, decades worth of creation... I arrived at the idea that hundreds of thousands, even a million wasn't inconceivable. Then imagine a World War Lightsaber breaking out, it would be epic. We'd go way beyond anything ever envisioned in SW lore, since there were probably NEVER a total number of Sith, Jedi, and Grey anything collectively rivaling the "Grand Army of Star Wars Fans". I'm a sci-fi nerd, I know but I love it. And I totally live for this stuff. Which is why I can totally see Mace Windu flying in on a drop ship, getting off it, saying "These M***** F******** are crazy. Oh hell no!" and getting right back aboard to go alert the council. I mean a million lightsabers and us saying "sure, come take them from us" yeah we're basically Mandalorians at that point who made a heck of a weapons stockpile.