The pulse of Walker, Texas Ranger fans quickened across California this morning, as news broke that police officers in the Northern California town of Anderson will now be equipped with nunchucks. The town's twenty officers will have the option to retire their batons in favor of the weapon more closely associated with martial arts films than law and order.

Sergeant Casey Day of the Anderson Police Department believes that the nunchucks, also known as nunchakus, will provide the police force with a valuable non-lethal tool in dealing with unruly suspects.

“It gives us the ability to control a suspect instead of striking them,” Day told the Los Angeles Times. “I see the value and the safety they bring to me,” he continued, adding that he doesn't "go around looking for trouble.”

The police will use a special version of the traditional weapon, one designed by retired Colorado police Sergeant Kevin Orcutt in the 1980's. The modern nunchuck varies in design from the ones frequently depicted in films — there are no chains, for example. Instead, the nunchucks the Anderson police will now be using are made out of a hardened plastic and connected by nylon.

Here's a (very 80's) video of Sergeant Orcutt demonstrating the "OPN," as he calls the "Orcutt Police Nunchaku."

Nunchucks used to be popular with police in California, but a series of officer injuries resulting from improper use led to the nunchucks' demise. Day, who was recently certified to train other officers in proper nunchuck technique, is confident those problems are in the past — there is now a 16-hour mandated training program for Anderson officers who wish to make the transition from baton to nunchuck.