"Leave your weapons here; it's the law."

[X]

In "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome", Max is told (at 7:55 on the DVD) "Leave your weapons here; it's the law". Max divests himself of several weapons, but is allowed to walk away with something in his mouth that sure looks like a weapon. Later (at 25:23), several people surround MasterBlaster and point guns at his head! I thought weapons weren't allowed there. Since they had weapons, why didn't they use them a long time ago to kill MasterBlaster? (This is a good movie. I'm posting this here since a popular nitpicker site rejected it twice.)

[X]

Maybe it was done on purpose to point out the fallacy of gun control.

[Drezzy]

Or they were guards, and guards are always allowed to have weapons while the commonfolk aren't in specific areas...

Political and social messages in Mad Max flicks? No.

[jmc]

I think maybe they couldn't have violence outside the realm of the Thunderdome, for the sake of the town's stability.  Just a guess.  

Didn't Max have a flyswatter or something?  Except it wasn't really a flyswatter.

[Ash]

It was indeed a flyswatter.

One of the old kinds made out of horse hair or whatever it was.

It has a knife in the handle.

In the beginning when Aunty tests Max by having her men attack him...Max uses it when Ironbar wraps that thing around his neck and he uses the knife to cut it loose.