The problem with that is that they can't change their weapons. I wanted them to always have a weapon but not have the ability to be unarmed like most ff games. I did come up with a solution.
I changed this line in scene_Equip
@actor.equip(@right_window.index, item == nil ? 0 : item.id)
to
@actor.equip(@right_window.index, item == nil ? 1 : item.id)
and that seemed to do the trick, although its not very pretty.