That was the first time Mr. Maloney, who had trained himself to use nunchucks after years spent studying martial arts, learned about the ban. The charge, which was easily resolved, planted the seeds for the legal case to come. By the time he graduated from law school in 1995, Mr. Maloney had already formulated the basic outline of a challenge to the nunchucks ban.

His reasons for first learning to use nunchucks went back to his childhood, he said. When Mr. Maloney was 6, he said, his father was fatally stabbed, so Mr. Maloney was well aware of the danger that edged weapons like knives could cause.

Because nunchucks allowed their wielder to maintain distance from his or her attacker, Mr. Maloney thought they would make an exceptional tool for self-defense.

In the ’70s, martial arts movies were a huge cultural phenomenon that brought centuries-old nunchucks closer to the center of modern popular culture. Impressed and inspired, droves of young people were twirling the weapons in their backyards and trying to avoid whacking themselves in the face.

But New York lawmakers worried that some young people might be using the device nefariously. Officials were especially worried about “muggers and street gangs” who might use nunchucks to cause serious harm, according to Judge Chen’s decision. Out of concern for public safety, they passed a law to keep nunchucks off the streets.

All the while, public enthusiasm for nunchucks never diminished. They showed up in video games like “Mortal Kombat,” comics like “Daredevil” and in cartoons like “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” in which an anthropomorphic adolescent reptile named Michelangelo wielded a set of nunchucks in each hand.

Mr. Maloney’s affection for the weapon did not wane either. He developed his own martial arts technique. Nunchucks, he said, were an integral part of that style, which he called “Shafan Ha Lavan” — the Hebrew translation of “white rabbit.”