Throwing stars, nunchaku and a bunch of other stupid mall ninja shit got banned in several countries back in the 80's and early 90's.

Reason: affordable VHS players and popular rental videos, showcasing violent use of such "exotic" weapons, led to a public scare about Asian martial arts and obscure weapons somehow being a threat to society.

This was the heyday of the "Karate film", and also largely coinciding with "Satanic panic". People had previously been rather sheltered against outside cultural influence, had poor critical thinking skills, and suddenly kids everywhere were having fun throwing dangerous-looking homemade metal star thingies at every wooden wall or fence in sight. I'm not kidding, we had several of the more rowdy boys at school making throwing stars and nunchucks in shop class (we still had metal- and woodworking classes in school back then) and promptly getting in trouble for vandalism and/or injuring themselves.

While a sane and sensible solution should be better parenting, this was a time (both for better and for worse) when kids routinely spent many hours per day outdoors unsupervised without their parents having the slightest idea where they might be (because no mobile phones yet). So the opportunity for kids to do mischief was great, and the temptation for adult society to "do something" and simply ban the mostly useless "weapon toys" was equally great.